Frontenac Feeling Forgotten with Stadium Proposal

Mar 05, 2025

According to Ellen Mortfield, Frontenac Resident and the office manager for Kingston and District Agricultural Society and the head organizer for Kingston’s Fall Fair, the cycle repeats itself “every five to ten years.”

The City of Kingston or another developer sees Memorial Centre’s open space (the field, midway, and track at Memorial Centre in downtown Kingston) and decides it would be a good place for something other than what it is currently used as.

“It seems like every five or ten years this comes along again and the people who use the fairgrounds and the Memorial Centre have to go on defence to remind the city what the Memorial Centre is to be used for,” said Mortfield.

In the past, Mortfield and her colleagues quickly trumped these plans to develop Memorial Park by retrieving a legal document from Kingston and District Agricultural Society’s archive.

According to Mortfield, the space is zoned as “open space”  in the area of Kingston known as Williamsville and it has existed in that form for “many many years.” The Memorial Centre itself was constructed in 1950 from funding primarily raised by the agricultural society as a memorial for soldiers who fought in the world wars and as a recreation centre for the community. The Agricultural Fair has existed in the “open space” since 1830 and is the second oldest fall fair in Ontario.

Along with the construction of the Memorial Centre, the agricultural society then secured provincial and federal funding with the intention that it would help expand the agriculture sector and in 1950 there was legislation signed that set out the rights to use the property every year for the fair.

“That agreement is still in place and every time one of these development proposals pop up we have to go back into the archive and find the agreement and say ‘no this is the intention of this property,’’ she said.

“We have on record responses from the city’s own legal department about the purposes of the property and what was agreed upon and the city’s legal department has agreed,” said Mortfield.

That document and a statement from inspectors deeming the property “unfit for large-scale development” was enough for the City to rethink the construction of a high school in that open space 10 years ago but to Mortfield, the proposal for a new development “feels different.”

It comes in the shape of a “multi-sport stadium” that would be built right on top of where Kingston’s weekly farmer’s market and the fall fair operate. The stadium was proposed by Victory Grounds Ventures with a promise to host two professional soccer teams and “drive industry” for Kingston.

“It does feel different and we along with the other community groups here are feeling quite threatened by the way this proposal has come up and been so strongly promoted by the city,” she said. “We’re a little baffled at how history seems to be forgotten but we are hopeful that with the community support and the legal precedents, it will go the way we want it to.”

When the proposal was announced on January 14, 2025, it left Mortfield and her colleagues feeling confused and ignored and while they have been assured that they can continue working on the organization of the September 2025 Fall Fair, it leaves the future of their jobs and the state of the urban resident to local food system connection in a murky spot.

Upon learning about the proposal, the Frontenac Federation of Agriculture penned and posted a letter to the City of Kingston expressing their disappointment in the city’s enthusiasm over the project.

“The irony of this situation cannot be ignored: the City is considering the destruction of barns and the displacement of a historic agricultural fair at the same time it acknowledges a food sustainability crisis,” said Jim Bennett, the President of the FFA, in the letter. “...The fairgrounds are a place where rural and urban communities come together, fostering appreciation and understanding of the farming industry.”

“There has always been a strong connection and lot’s of support with the city for the Fall Fair and with this proposal on the table we are feeling a bit pushed out, bullied and forgotten,” said Mortfield.  “It is not the way we want to work with the city at all.”

As a lifelong lover of the Fall Fair and farmer’s market and member of the Food Policy Council, Mortfield echoes the pleas made by the Frontenac Farmers Association in a letter to the city of Kingston: that the loss of the Farmer’s Market and Fall Fair would not only cause financial stress to the farmers in Frontenac County and it’s surrounding regions by reducing their outreach and access, it would diminish the urban resident’s connections to local food and food systems.

“I’m involved in another group called the Food Policy Council and there is a lot of work to be done to help our local food system and to make sure that we are maintaining access to local, sustainable food,” said Mortfield. “It’s important for our economy and in these days of globalization our local farmers and food producers need all the help they can get.”

Mortfield believes that the Fall Fair and the farmer’s market aids these connections.

“The Fall Fair is crucial for connections to local food consumers and producers,” said Mortfield. “There are only two fall fairs left in the Frontenac Region - the Parham Fall Fair and the Kingston Fall Fair - so it’s a really important way to connect rural and urban residents. The fact that the fair is in the middle of town makes it an amazing opportunity to make those connections between the urban community and the farmers who are producing local food so it would be a huge loss.”

The Fall Fair also hosts Ontario’s largest dairy show. It’s the achievement day for all of the 4-H clubs in the Kingston and Frontenac region, there are beef shows, horse shows and a beef and swine auction.This gives 4-H participants the chance to sell their livestock as well and also gain connections within the food and agricultural community.

The strain would not be just be on the economy of the farmers in the surrounding region but it would also be a logistical nightmare, says Mortfield.

“We know that the farmer’s market and the fall fair are very successful at this site,” said Mortfield. “It’s an excellent way for people to access everything that is important. The Fall Fair would be difficult to move elsewhere. The reason that it works so well is because we are right in town, I’m not sure how else it would work.

Mortfield, along with other groups connected to the Fall Fair and the farmer’s market, have been participating in community consultation with the city and giving presentations about how the site is used. While it has put more on her plate, Mortfield recognizes the urgency.

“Normally I would have our fair prize book all done by now and  I have been sidetracked but it is really important that we make this case for ourselves once again even though it’s been done many times before,” she said.

As stated in their letter, the FFA is calling on the city to take four actions when making their decision:

1. Honour its obligations with Kingston and District’s Agricultural Society and recognize the importance of keeping the Kingston Fall Fair and Farmer’s Market at their current location.
2. Reassess alternative locations for the proposed stadium rather than disrupting community space.
3. Provide full transparency on the plans for the facility and how it would impact existing agreements, community events and public access to the Memorial Centre Grounds.
4. Engage in meaningful dialogue with agricultural representatives, fair organizers and the broader community to ensure that any development aligns with Kingston’s values and priorities.

Kingston City Council stopped taking community input surveys about the site on February 28 2025 and City Council will be finalizing their decision about the site at a meeting on March 18, 2025.