Holly Community Centre will be getting a new name.
Barrie city council gave final approval Monday night to rename the Mapleton Avenue facility as ‘Peggy Hill Team Community Centre’ as part of a $640,000, eight-year naming rights agreement.
The Heritage Barrie committee will also be consulted on the development of an installation at the south-end community centre to showcase the history of the Holly community.
Council changed the name despite pushback from some Barrie residents.
“The desire to recognize the history of an area is very valid. I can accept concerns about loss of the name Holly,” said Mayor Jeff Lehman. “But I think it would be a very poor message to send to change direction at this eleventh and a half hour. It would… constitute bad faith after having negotiated for some time with council approval (of the naming policy).
“This is being done to raise funds to help us keep taxes down," the mayor added.
Deputy Mayor Barry Ward agreed changing course now was wrong.
“At this point, it’s much too late to pull out of this,” he said. “It was a deal negotiated in good faith by both Peggy Hill Team and (city) staff. I can’t imagine the message it’s going to send. If we pull out of this now, good luck to us going forward to ever getting a sponsor.
“It’s our policy. If we don’t like the policy we can change it," Ward added.
City council decided in 2015 to look into naming rights deals for Barrie facilities. Proceeds from the naming rights sale go into Barrie’s sponsorship revenue account, thereby contributing to the city’s overall annual operating revenue.
The motion to change the Holly name passed by a 6-3 vote of council.
Lehman, Ward and Couns. Ann-Marie Kungl, Robert Thomson, Jim Harris and Sergio Morales voted for the new name. Couns. Gary Harvey, Clare Riepma and Keenan Aylwin voted against the name change.
Coun. Natalie Harris did not vote, having declared a potential conflict of interest, and Coun. Mike McCann was not present for this portion of tonight's virtual city council meeting.
Harvey, who represents this part of Barrie, switched his position Monday night and voted against the name change because of feedback from Ward 7 residents.
“I’ve heard it from them loud and clear,” he said. “Seventy per cent of those I have spoken to have expressed concern about the naming. It has nothing to do with the vendor (Peggy Hill). It’s the loss of the name Holly. Unfortunately, there was no community consultation.”
“I’m concerned about the overall loss of the Holly name,” said Riepma. “If we take the name away, we lose something as a city.”
Barrie resident Cathy Colebatch made a deputation to council about the renaming, suggesting several ways in which the Holly name could still be included, such as having naming rights deals for parts of the community centre’s interior instead.
“It’s more about losing the name,” she said, “and the cultural relevance.”
Coun. Jim Harris, however, noted a nearby public school and park both contain the name Holly, as will the new library branch in the area.
City staff sought out interested parties for the Holly Community Centre naming rights and had talks with 20 local companies.
The $640,000 will be paid in annual instalments of $80,000 over the eight years of the agreement, beginning March 1, 2022 and ending Feb. 28, 2030.
The start or end date of the deal will be adjusted if the facility is closed for an extended period of time, three months or more, due to a pandemic or if a large portion of the building was damaged by a tornado or other natural disaster.
As part of the proposed deal, the city will pay costs associated with the naming rights changeover. The first sponsorship payment, $80,000, will go toward covering the costs associated with switching signs to the new name.
The city has a 10-year, $1.7-million naming rights agreement with Sadlon Motors for the former Barrie Molson Centre in the city’s south end, called Sadlon Arena. There’s a list of several city facilities for which staff are looking to find a sponsor.
Barrie’s downtown performing arts centre is called Five Points Theatre presented by Pratt Homes and Pratt Development. Pratt’s naming rights deal with the city for Five Points Theatre, approved in late 2017 by council, was for $300,000 to be paid in the first four years of a 15-year agreement.
Lehman said all the city sponsorship agreements, including the one at Holly, will raise more than $3 million in total, “which doesn’t have to come out of our taxpayers’ pockets,” he said. “We spend it on things which benefit our community.”
Lehman again addressed the backlash Hill has faced.
“I think it’s deeply, deeply unfortunate some of the comments that were made online about this particular arrangement,” said the mayor, who thanked Hill for coming forward and wanting to do this. “Yes, it’s not a donation. This is a sponsorship. But under no circumstances should Miss Hill or her company in any way have taken any kind of negativity around this support.”
Peggy Hill has been in Barrie since 1992 and in the real estate business since 2003. She has donated to a number of groups, including the YMCA of Simcoe Muskoka’s ‘100 Reasons Y’ campaign, Barrie Food Bank, Autism Ontario, Gilda’s Club, Hospice Simcoe and the Children’s Miracle Network.
