For Sale: Casa Loma

Kiwanis out at Casa Loma

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Published Monday, May. 16, 2011 12:00AM EDT

More related to this story

• Kiwanis rejects city’s demand to fire Casa Loma chair
• Council gives Kiwanis deadline on Casa Loma
• Feud brews over Casa Loma

The deal, to be presented next week to the city’s executive committee, would set up a new corporation and board to manage the rambling mansion and develop a long-term strategy for the five-acre site. If approved by council, the pact will be the latest twist in a years-long debate over how to make the most of the massive property that has struggled to pull in visitors, especially since the recession. It also brokers an amiable end to the sometimes troubled partnership between the city and the Kiwanis Club of Casa Loma. Just three years ago, the club battled hard to win a new 20-year management contract, only to have questions raised about that deal last summer. “There is a unique set of skills that is required to run a castle in a modern environment,” said Councillor Joe Mihevc, an ex-officio member of Casa Loma’s board. “A service club might not have that expertise. I think there is a recognition that we have to up the game.” Asked about the feud that erupted last summer, which led the city to demand the Casa Loma board chair’s resignation, Mr. Mihevc said those differences have been worked out. He hopes a new management deal will see the terraces and halls built by tycoon Sir Henry Pellatt some 100 years ago filled with corporate events and weddings at night as well as tourists and local school children by day. “It’s just got to be a place where Toronto plays,” he said. In recent years, managers of the landmark have strained to extend its reach and compete for precious tourist dollars. Visits during the first three months of 2011 fell by 6 per cent compared to a year earlier. Casa Loma board chair Richard Wozenilek, whose law firm was at the centre of a dispute over billings last summer, said Tuesday that the allegations, made by former mayor David Miller, were never substantiated and played no role in negotiations to cut short the management contract. “What happened last summer has nothing to do with what is going before city council,” he said. “I am still chair and the then mayor is no longer mayor.” Talks for the Kiwanis Club to bow out of its management duties began in December after Rob Ford was elected, he said. The change of heart by the club to end its 20-year deal follows a drop in revenue and visitors during the recession. The demographics of the club’s members was also a factor, said Mr. Wozenilek, who has led the Casa Loma board for two decades. “A lot of its members are quite frankly tired after 75 years of operation,” he said. Under the terms of the deal, the Kiwanis Club will be allowed to hold weekly meetings at the mansion free of charge and up to five charitable events each year. It also will be given free office space and the city will put up a plaque to honour the club’s long history with the building. All existing employment and service contracts will be honoured, and the Kiwanis Club will work with the city during a four-month transition period. The agreement is expected to go before city council in June. Mr. Mihevc said he hopes the new corporation and board will be in place some time next year. The new board will decide how Casa Loma will be managed, he said.

The city has agreed to take control of Casa Loma from the Kiwanis Club, ending a prolonged power struggle with the charity that has run the struggling tourist attraction since 1937.

As part of a negotiated takeover agreement that must still be approved by council, the city will pay the Kiwanis Club of Casa Loma $1.45 million for artifacts and trademarks such as the Casa Loma name. That amount is a $500,000 premium over the $950,000 the city already owed for the artifacts under a previous agreement.

The city plans to run the century-old facility for 12 to 18 months before turning it over to a third party, said economic development and culture general manager Mike Williams, who will likely become the new board chair.

The proposed takeover comes less than three years after the city signed a 20-year contract with Kiwanis. Though an advisory committee recommended that the contract be tendered, former mayor David Miller and council supported the no-bid Kiwanis deal. Miller later said he had made a mistake.

Frosty for much of the last decade, the relationship between the city and Kiwanis became especially contentious in 2010. Miller and city staff blamed the club for failing to complete renovations, and Miller unsuccessfully demanded the removal of board chair Richard Wozenilek after his law firm billed Casa Loma tens of thousands in fees.

Williams said suggestions of Kiwanis mismanagement were “probably harsh.” He and Kiwanis president Mark Brogden said the club simply did not have enough money to pay for improvements.

“This agreement with the city wasn’t struck because of the club’s inability to manage the castle,” Brogden said. “We have done that for the last 75 years, and we’ve done it quite profitably both for the club and the city. It’s more a question of the facility needing some extensive capital investment, something the club is not really in a position to do.”

The city’s goal, according to a report released Monday, is to “stabilize” Casa Loma while developing a long-term plan.

Though the former mansion of businessman Sir Henry Pellatt remains one of Toronto’s most popular tourist attractions, it has failed to keep pace with its competitors — Williams said it has “an elevator that looks like it’s about a thousand years old” — and failed to develop compelling reasons for GTA residents to make more than one visit. Visits from American tourists have dropped since the onset of the U.S. recession, and annual attendance has fallen about 5 per cent per year over the last five years to 280,000.

At present, Williams said, Casa Loma is “a single-visit site unless you’re going for a special event like a wedding or something like that. And single-visit sites — it’s a hard time to raise your attendance. You’re not getting more visitors from outside of Canada, so we have to get people that are already here to come more often.”

Wozenilek, board chair since 1991, said the decision to relinquish control was sad and difficult for Kiwanis members. But he called it a “win-win for Kiwanis and the city.”

Councillor Joe Mihevc, a non-voting board member, also praised the deal. He said Casa Loma would best be governed, like other leading cultural institutions, by “people with very serious skill sets,” including experts in tourism promotion, event planning and heritage preservation.

Trelawny Howell, a great-grandniece of Pellatt who has been fiercely critical of Kiwanis, applauded the takeover but said the city should not be paying for the artifacts and trademarks. They never actually belonged to Kiwanis, she said.

Williams acknowledged “differences of opinion” on who owns the Casa Loma name. He said the city decided to pay for it in part because it sought to reach an “amicable” solution; it needed Kiwanis to agree to a contract buyout.

More related to this story

• Kiwanis rejects city’s demand to fire Casa Loma chair
• Council gives Kiwanis deadline on Casa Loma
• Feud brews over Casa Loma

The deal, to be presented next week to the city’s executive committee, would set up a new corporation and board to manage the rambling mansion and develop a long-term strategy for the five-acre site. If approved by council, the pact will be the latest twist in a years-long debate over how to make the most of the massive property that has struggled to pull in visitors, especially since the recession. It also brokers an amiable end to the sometimes troubled partnership between the city and the Kiwanis Club of Casa Loma. Just three years ago, the club battled hard to win a new 20-year management contract, only to have questions raised about that deal last summer. “There is a unique set of skills that is required to run a castle in a modern environment,” said Councillor Joe Mihevc, an ex-officio member of Casa Loma’s board. “A service club might not have that expertise. I think there is a recognition that we have to up the game.” Asked about the feud that erupted last summer, which led the city to demand the Casa Loma board chair’s resignation, Mr. Mihevc said those differences have been worked out. He hopes a new management deal will see the terraces and halls built by tycoon Sir Henry Pellatt some 100 years ago filled with corporate events and weddings at night as well as tourists and local school children by day. “It’s just got to be a place where Toronto plays,” he said. In recent years, managers of the landmark have strained to extend its reach and compete for precious tourist dollars. Visits during the first three months of 2011 fell by 6 per cent compared to a year earlier. Casa Loma board chair Richard Wozenilek, whose law firm was at the centre of a dispute over billings last summer, said Tuesday that the allegations, made by former mayor David Miller, were never substantiated and played no role in negotiations to cut short the management contract. “What happened last summer has nothing to do with what is going before city council,” he said. “I am still chair and the then mayor is no longer mayor.” Talks for the Kiwanis Club to bow out of its management duties began in December after Rob Ford was elected, he said. The change of heart by the club to end its 20-year deal follows a drop in revenue and visitors during the recession. The demographics of the club’s members was also a factor, said Mr. Wozenilek, who has led the Casa Loma board for two decades. “A lot of its members are quite frankly tired after 75 years of operation,” he said. Under the terms of the deal, the Kiwanis Club will be allowed to hold weekly meetings at the mansion free of charge and up to five charitable events each year. It also will be given free office space and the city will put up a plaque to honour the club’s long history with the building. All existing employment and service contracts will be honoured, and the Kiwanis Club will work with the city during a four-month transition period. The agreement is expected to go before city council in June. Mr. Mihevc said he hopes the new corporation and board will be in place some time next year. The new board will decide how Casa Loma will be managed, he said.