“An important and symbolic piece of our history is at risk of disappearing from the horizon, quite literally.” That’s how On The Bay writer Nancy Falconer began a story about the Nottawasaga Lighthouse back in 2005. Now, 13 years later, the future for our Lighthouse is looking much brighter, but an even more symbolic piece of our history is in danger of disappearing from the horizon: The Collingwood Terminals.
The Terminals building is owned by the Town of Collingwood, but has been declared “surplus,” meaning it can be sold. There have been potential buyers over the years who have proposed turning the building to some other use, from a mushroom farm to a condo development. But in the end, the cost of repairing and repurposing the huge structure scared those buyers away. So today the Terminals sit, serving as our area’s most recognizable landmark while bringing in some income for the town from companies that rent the top of the structure to plant their communications towers.
But the status quo is no longer sustainable. The Terminals need repairs just to keep them standing. According to a recent engineering report commissioned by the town, those repairs would cost about $10 million. And that’s not including the cost of fixing the timber “piles” underneath the Terminals that serve as a foundation.
Yes, you read that correctly – there are more than 4,000 poles made of wood dating from 1928 driven into the lakebed on a spit surrounded by water, holding up a 100-foot-tall structure made of four-foot-thick concrete reinforced by rebar. And the $10-million pricetag to fix the Terminals doesn’t include them, because they weren’t examined thoroughly as part of the town’s engineering study.
The study did include an estimate to tear down the Terminals – $5 million – half the cost of repairing the structure that sits above ground, just so it doesn’t fall down. And probably about 20 per cent of the cost of repairs if you factor in those wooden piles that could be waterlogged and rotting below.
Based on that math, there are some in our community who are advocating the lower-cost option of tearing down the terminals. But there’s a big problem with that scenario, too: there’s a contaminated “bladder” buried underground just north of the Terminals, which was designed to last 25 years. And those 25 years are almost up. So tearing down the Terminals could weaken or puncture the buried bladder, sending contaminants into the soil or water.
Should we save the Collingwood Terminals? Yes. They’re our most iconic landmark and our most meaningful link to our past. Ideally, it would be great to repurpose them for some other use, as in the many examples we show in this issue alongside the feature article by Marc Huminilowycz. But first, they must be repaired and remediated so they are structurally sound and not in danger of “demolition by neglect.”
Will it be easy or cheap? No. It will take money, and it will take political will (to give you an idea of the latter, we’ve polled all of the candidates for Collingwood Council in the upcoming municipal election and put them together in a chart that accompanies the story). But most of all, it will take people to step up and fight as they have for the Lighthouse – working tirelessly to gather public support, private donations and government approvals to save a piece of the past as a monument to the future.
Having written about Grassroots Heroes for almost 15 years, I don’t just think it can be done – I know it can. All we need are some heroes who will fight to save our Terminals. ❧
