New Community Hub Coming to Mississauga

Awhile ago, we learned that an old and well-known educational institution in Mississauga had been chosen as the site of a potential project.

Now, it looks like the project that involves turning the T.L. Kennedy Secondary School and Sgt. David Yakichuk Park into a community hub and new secondary school is making some progress. The idea of converting the school into a central one-stop community hub for the Downtown Cooksville core has been the vision of current Councillor Nando Iannicca’s for over ten years. Finally the project is making some headway.

“What a marvellous pleasure before my time is done that we have the formal motion to deal with the future of T.L. Kennedy School…we spent ten years trying to get this together,” said Iannicce at the General Committee meeting this past month. 

The Peel District School Board (PDSB) is currently in discussion with the City of Mississauga in regards to TLK and is working on creating a plan of action. An outside consultant will be hired to develop a joint study to decide what best amenities or services will help make it easier for residents to gain access to recreational, educational and other resources at the TLK site. 

The cost of the joint study will be funded equally between both the PDSB and the City of Mississauga at $60,000 each. This plan will help lay the foundation for future plans for the school and the current park.

The study will also outline an agreement for how the parks and educational space will be funded in the future. 

With the motion moved at the General Committee meeting, the following timeline is set in place and initial steps will be taken in May. 

May-August 2018: Recruit consultant

September 2018-January 2019: Stakeholder consultation and information gathering

February 2019-April 2019: Draft Study

May 2019: Draft Study and Corporate Report presented to General Committee

The current school is expected to remain in place (so TLK won’t be going anywhere), but will be re-developed to feature more resources. Also, recreational services will be attached to the school, making it more of a community hub. The Future Directions Master Plan and 2016 Vision Cooksville recommend a community meeting and recreational space with a bigger library of approximately 17,000 square feet. 

Currently, amenities available for residents in the downtown core include the Mississauga Valley Community Centre (MVCC) that is already pressed for resources, as well as the Cooksville library that is currently the smallest branch in all of Mississauga.

Presently, there are close to 11,000 residents within the Downtown Cooksville area and it is expected that, over the next 20 years, an additional 7,000 people will call the area home. The development of community spaces will help redevelop and bring new opportunities to current and future residents of the area.

Part of the project involves the Sgt. David Yakichuk Park lands. Consideration will be given to the fact that Cooksville already has a low percentage of park space available to residents and that one component of the Vision Cooksville plan is to create more open spaces for people to connect.

“Yakichuk Park will always exist on the property, it’s just a question of what it’s new urban form will look like,” says Iannicca.

The lands themselves are in a central location along the future Hurtontario LRT line and Cooksville GO station and present a great opportunity to concentrate community facilities.

“You have a tremendous asset here, as T.L. Kennedy School. It does need re-building, you have no money to re-build it. What a great idea if I could find 20 million dollars for you to build your school and maybe we get our community centre and development opposite the GO train station and perhaps even funded entirely on its own…levies and ongoing revenue could pay for the whole thing,” says Councillor Iannicca.

It will be exciting to see how this project unfolds.

Updates to follow on the study.