Top story of 2019: TD Bank conversion to Village Green

A number of topics dominated the local news in 2019.
The cancellation of Roxodus hurt a lot of people and scandalized the township, and Creemore Springs’ rebranding made the beer’s fans far and wide lose their minds.
The discussion about cannabis retail also made headlines. In our case it was a fictional story about how this newspaper was planning to subsidize publication with a cannabis retail location of our own that got a lot of attention. Much to our surprise most people were thoroughly disappointed to learn that it was an April Fool’s joke. We had to turn away many curious and disappointed shoppers in the days, weeks and months following its publication. In fact, we still get calls!
Although these themes were front and centre in 2019, from our perspective, the conversation about the Village Green project on the TD Bank property certainly dominated headlines, garnered the most letters-to-the-editor and sparked the most sidewalk debates. For a while, we couldn’t go anywhere in town without hearing from people on both sides of the issue, and those who couldn’t decide.
It started late in 2018 with the first of two public meetings.
The idea was already out there. Stuart Lazier and Tony Arrell had pitched a proposal to BIA members that a foundation be established to accept a donation of the shuttered TD Bank property and that it be razed to make way for an expanded town square style garden.
Meeting mixed reactions, a consultation committee was formed and a consultant was hired to conduct two public input sessions.
It may be difficult for outsiders to understand the level of community engagement this topic elicited. There were people who were lamenting the loss of commercial space and those who couldn’t believe there would be any opposition to it at all (not to mention, those still grieving the loss of the local bank.)
In June, Creemore Community Foundation’s build team hired PFS Studio, a leading planning, urban design, and landscape architecture firm based in Vancouver, BC, as the design firm for Creemore’s Village Green. Some preliminary designs were presented at a third public meeting in September but some fine tuned designs are still forthcoming.
The project received support from Clearview council in October.
Just this month, we reported the land has been transferred to the Creemore Community Foundation and plans are in the works for the bank’s demolition, which will happen in the New Year but an exact date is not known.
There is a lot to explore in 2020. Stay tuned.