Page 12 - CambridgeLookingBackNeat

CAMBRIDGE: LOOKING BACK

City Hall has become a key part of core

THE CITY OF CAMBRIDGE ARCHIVES PHOTOS

Cambridge is a city that tries However, the building would go on to and an interlocking brick walkway that
to hold its heritage close to its become the ‘centerpiece’ of a collection of incorporated the centre’s new logo. Work
nearby significant buildings including the on Cambridge’s new City Hall, with a
heart and celebrates reclaimed Wesley Methodist Church (1879), the Galt projected cost of $30 million and financed
buildings that have played a key Vegetable Market Building – which houses through the city’s hydro utility, began in
role in its history. the Cambridge Farmers’ Market (1887), 2005 and was completed, according to a
Among them is 46 Dickson St., known as the former Galt Fire Hall (1989), and the Mississauga News article published in June
both Cambridge City Hall and Historic Galt Durward Centre/Cambridge Centre for the of 2008, on budget and on time.
Town Hall. Arts (1922). The new four-storey 85,650-square-
The building, home to the City of Fast-forward more than a century later foot building featured 250 workstations,
Cambridge Archives, was designed by following Cambridge’s amalgamation in public meeting rooms and was built with
architect H.B. Sinclair and was constructed 1973, and the process to construct a new Leadership in Energy and Environmental
in 1858 following several setbacks at a cost city hall was also met with criticism. Among Design (LEED) as a focus.
of $3,650. Initially, the building housed the them were the cost and the proposed It received LEED gold status in 2011 thanks
town market in the basement level, and location, with some believing it should be to its many environmentally-friendly
the city’s administrative services on the located more centrally on Hespeler Road. features, including a modulating gas
first and second floors. However, it was clear that something boiler, day lighting and motion sensors
It was built on the same site to replace needed to occur considering that to reduce the use of artificial lighting,
the former Dumfries Township Hall, which Cambridge Council in 1978 had agreed to radiant heating panels to save fan power,
had been constructed in 1838 and its initial pay $4.1 million over the course of the next operable windows and a green roof that
design, according to the Ontario Heritage 15 years to rent just over 31,000 square feet was expected to result in a 43% saving
Trust website, was scoffed at by many of of space on two floors of Cambridge Place in energy costs – translating into about
the town’s 3,500 residents. In fact, when on Water Street North. $50,000 annually.
a meeting was held in the winter of 1856 In 2001, work on the first phase of the “It’s really incredible – an amazing building,”
to discuss the new building’s design, Civic Square project – the new home of Slobodanka Lekic, the City of Cambridge
many insisted it was not ‘grand’ enough Cambridge City Hall - was completed project manager on its construction, was
to represent Galt’s rising importance as a and included a courtyard at the entrance quoted as saying in that 2008 article.
centre of industry. of the Cambridge Centre of the Arts

12 Summer 2023 www.cambridgechamber.com