Brockville, Ont. Rotary Club raising money for future waterfront redevelopment

A long vacant piece of land along Brockville's waterfront will soon be transformed into the city's newest park, a process that has been decades in the making.

The city has also partnered with the Brockville Rotary Club, which began a fundraising campaign to help complete the project.

"The city acquired the property in around the early 2000's and spent the last 15 years really taking care of all the environmental assessments and documentation that is required," noted Phil Wood, director of operations for the city.

The empty lot along Water Street in Brockville that will soon become Reynolds Park. (Nate Vandermeer/CTV News Ottawa)

That's because the Water Street property is contaminated by years of coal runoff from the former W.B. Reynolds coal company.

Mountains of coal would sit along the St. Lawrence River after being unloaded from ships.

"Rain water and so forth would trickle through it into the ground and, of course, that leaves contaminated ground we have to work around," Wood said.

W.B. Reynolds Coal Company on the site of what will become Reynolds Park in Brockville, Ont. (Photo courtesy Brockville Museum)

"The options, really, were if we were going to construct anything, we would have to completely excavate the site to remove everything or to cap it, as we've done here, with a number of feet of soil and crushed stone," he added.

Removing the contamination would have cost the city millions, according to Wood.

"The idea is to keep it undisturbed and to let the systems that exist to function," Wood said, adding he worked on a similar project in Belleville.

"This is not that uncommon of a process, where a lot of industry existed on the rivers for a long time and left behind a legacy that has to be properly mitigated to be able to be public use," he said.

Phase one of the new Reynolds Park will see greenspace added and a parking lot. The asphalt, concrete work and grass should be in place by the summer.

"When the property was acquired by the city, its direction was to become an additional amount of parking, a greenspace for the residents and connectivity to the nature trails that we call the Brock Trail," Wood said.

The aptly named Reynolds Park will connect to Centeen Park through the Brock Trail, which will continue over to Blockhouse Island.

"The nice thing is we developed this with the city, with a lot of public feedback and the residents had their say in what this would look like," Wood said. "It's a really enjoyable part for staff to actually see it through to being a nice new spot for everybody."

The partnership with the Rotary Club will help to complete phase two of the project, with a fundraising campaign underway to add a pavilion and boardwalk.

"Of course, it takes some money to be able to do that and we thought, 'Well, what's a fundraiser that we can do to involve the community and will bring community down into Reynolds Park?'" said Rotarian Jacquie Pepper-Journal.

"We came up with 'Pave the Way'; so, we're doing the brick project and we're encouraging folks to make a legacy for themselves and participate by purchasing an engraved brick," Pepper-Journal said.

"They will be put down in Reynolds Park and people will be able to see it and be part of the new redevelopment."

Three sizes will be available: 4x8", 8x8" and 12x12", ranging in price from $125 to $500.

They can be engraved with a family or company name, or to honour a lost loved one.

"On the rendition of the park, you'll see benches down by the waterfront and the bricks are going to pave the way between the benches," she said, noting a lofty goal of 1,000 bricks.

"That's our stretch goal but any brick obviously we sell is a bonus," Pepper-Journal said.

A rendering of the future Reynolds Park in Brockville, Ont. (City of Brockville)

"We have the St. Lawrence River, we have a waterfront that we want the community to use so I think it's wonderful," she said. "We are going to have a greenspace that people can come down, bring their families, bring their friends, tourists can come down, you can see blockhouse from it, you can see the ships go by, it's just a perfect greenspace and everybody can share in it."

Pepper-Journal says the club will be attending Brockville events this summer for people to order bricks, or ask questions about the project, and help complete the waterfront park.

"Rotary has been a fantastic partner in almost all of the recreation projects we do in the city," Wood said.

"Everybody talks about Blockhouse and what an excellent feature this is and if you put this right next to our rowing club and Blockhouse, I think it's going to be a wonderful extension to our beautiful waterfront," he added.

Wood said the city is helping to design the pavilion that will be added in phase two, and will be presented to city council in 2024.

The Rotary Club's fundraising campaign is expected to last until the fall, and more information along with a brick order form can be found on their website.