Rebuild it and they will come.
That's the belief of some Barrie residents, and now councillors, who are opposed to tearing down the gazebo at the Sam Cancilla Park on Dunlop Street East.
City council voted Monday to give community groups until May 30 to raise $25,000 to help pay for the restoration of the 81-year-old structure.
The unanimous decision reversed last week's vote to demolish the gazebo and grade the land.
Former Barrie mayor Janice Laking voiced her support to preserve the building.
“If Sam was here tonight, I have no doubt he would say ‘save the gazebo’,” Laking said at a council meeting Monday. “He thought buildings needed to be used, history needed to be preserved.”=0-]
Councillor Michael Prowse said the decision should not be about money, but about the gazebo's use.
“Not a lot of residents of the city of Barrie with their families and friends are using the gazebo,” he said. “Its use hasn’t changed much in the last decade.
“It’s boarded up now. It’s used by the homeless and people we don’t want to socialize with on a Saturday night.”
Prowse urged council to approve the original plan to knock the gazebo down, but counillor Rose Romita disagreed.
“It’s not just the homeless, it’s used by many others,” she said. “Should we take all of the park benches away because the homeless use them?”
Depending on what happens by the May 30 council meeting, reconstruction work would take six-to-eight weeks to complete.
Melinda Walters was walking through the park Monday morning. She says she has never set foot in the gazebo.
"I don't think we should spend money fixing it up," she said. "It's so ugly. If council has money to spend here, lets get some new playground equipment. Let's make the park a nicer place to spend time and not just a place for homeless people to sleep. That makes it intimidating for families to come here at all."
The estimated cost to rehabilitate the gazebo is $50,000 not including future repairs to the foundation at another $10,000 to $15,000.
In comparison, it would cost $25,000 to take the gazebo apart and grade the parkland.
City staff have said that the gazebo has no heritage or historical designation, but may have been a gathering place for soldiers during the Second World War.
Washrooms located under the gazebo have been closed for several years and the entire structure has been fenced off to keep people away since last December “due to significant structural deterioration that creates a public safety risk.”
