Goodwill seeks city help for planSTIMULUS: The non-profit proposes an $11-million redevelopment of its headquarters, but the city may balk at giving $600,000 By Patrick Maloney |
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 [ 2009-08-26 ] |
Photo by Sue Reeve
Michelle Quintyn, chief executive of Goodwill Industries stands outside the Horton Street location with some staff and customers in the background. Quintyn is looking to board of control for $600,000 towards a redevelopment project on the site.
Goodwill officials will today ask city politicians to contribute $600,000 to their $11-million proposed redevelopment of a "decrepit" parcel in London's SOHO neighbourhood. Though the expansion of the non-profit business's regional headquarters on Horton St. was previously endorsed by Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best, the request could meet resistance amid belt-tightening at city hall. "We're confident there will be strong support on the merits of the project," said Michelle Quintyn, the London-based chief executive for Goodwill's Southwestern Ontario operations, who will meet with board of control today. "We realize the funding piece is the challenge, but we have to show the province and the federal government that the city is behind this."
Goodwill is putting $300,000 into the project, along with $3 million in financing and has applied for $7.9 million in stimulus funding from the federal and provincial governments. The project's total cost is $11.69 million. Best known as a second-hand clothing shop, Goodwill also offers employment counselling that last year served 7,000 people in the London region. It employs 155 workers in the city. Quintyn says the proposed project would redevelop a "decrepit" 1.2 hectares behind Goodwill's headquarters, bordered by Wellington, Simcoe and Clarence streets. The Wellington streetscape isn't part of the redevelopment and will remain unchanged. The building that houses Goodwill's offices and shop would be replaced by a four-storey facility. There would also be a small park and trees and shrubs on rooftops and the Horton streetscape. Not including construction work, Quintyn says, the project will create as many as 100 new jobs, many for people with "employment barriers" who would work at the expanded shop.
That's a break for the city coffers, Quintyn says: Many of those workers -- who face language barriers or have had legal trouble -- "would otherwise be on Ontario Works." While DeCicco-Best wrote a letter supporting Goodwill's pitch for federal and provincial stimulus money, she said yesterday a request for city money is different. Council has already agreed not to give any of its stimulus cash to groups. There is no other source of the $600,000 "that I know of," she added. "It looks like a great project, (but) I don't know where the money would come from. If we do it for one, we could have to do it for all."
patrick.maloney@sunmedia.ca
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