From 'The Record', June 19, 2023
KITCHENER — It was a big blow to the community when the Schneiders meat plant on Courtland Avenue closed in 2015 after 90 years of production.
Eight years after Schneiders jobs moved to a new plant in Hamilton, the land left behind will be put to use to help solve a housing crisis.
Kitchener councillors voted 11-0 Monday to approve a long-considered plan to transform the site into 3,345 purpose-built rental units, contained largely in 13 towers from five to 38 storeys.
Councillors hailed the project as the right plan for an iconic site. They lauded developer Jamie Crich for giving city hall all it wanted and more.
“This is a remarkable development,” Coun. Christine Michaud said. “It’s going to be a beautiful, beautiful area compared to what it is now,” Coun. Jason Deneault said.
“It will be quite an addition to the community. The sooner, the better,” Coun. Bil Ioannidis said.
Demolition has left the 10-hectare industrial site mostly vacant. Three surviving Schneiders buildings will be used for shops and jobs and business — a six-storey office building, a warehouse and a former maintenance garage.
Residential towers will cover the bulk of the site: eight towers of 16 and 38 storeys, five medium-rise buildings of five to eight storeys, and one low-rise block of townhouses.
There will be two parks, one of them city-owned, and a multi-use trail. Almost 4,000 parking spaces are to be scattered underground or on the surface. Two Ion rail transit stations (Borden and Mill) are within 600 metres.
Redevelopment was first proposed in 2019 and has been revised since then. It has also been delayed; Crich, whose family firm, Auburn Developments, is behind the Barrel Yards towers in central Waterloo, once hoped to begin construction in 2020.
He now aims to start construction this summer and build in stages. The project he estimates at $1-billion is the largest that his London, Ont.-based firm has undertaken. It may take a decade to complete.
“It’s nice to see this finally come to fruition,” Crich said. “We think it’s going to be a great asset for the community.”
The approved plan is taller and denser than first proposed, with one more tower and fewer townhouse blocks. It has 527 more dwellings than first proposed and it now includes 143 units with three bedrooms.
Affordable units have been increased by two-thirds. There will be 135 affordable units that will rent for 20 per cent below market rate for 25 years. Parking for electric vehicles has been added.
A planned city-owned park is 50 per cent bigger than first proposed. Tall towers have been redesigned to align with city guidelines.
Crich will put $850,000 into 97 Victoria, a housing project for unsheltered people proposed in downtown Kitchener. “To have a developer offer this contribution is pretty amazing,” said Joe Mancini, co-founder of the Working Centre that’s behind the housing project.
End of an era for Schneiders
Auburn bought the Schneiders site in 2017. J.M. Schneider built the factory there in 1924 when it was on the outskirts of the city.
When the last pack of bologna rolled off the production line in 2015, teary-eyed factory workers remembered Schneiders as one of the last big manufacturers in Kitchener, where people could get a job right out of high school and stay until retirement.
“It was just terrible to see those jobs lost,” Crich said. He knows the property is iconic and that many people in the community have a connection to it. There is a plan to name one of the open spaces JM Schneider Platz.
“We wanted to honour that and make sure that we could do what we could to make sure that lives on,” Crich said.
Jeff Outhit is a Waterloo Region-based general assignment reporter for The Record. Reach him via email: jouthit@therecord.com
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