Back to SearchKITCHENER - Mayor Berry Vrbanovic announced the city’s first ever multi-million-dollar municipal sponsorship agreement today at the State of the City Address.
In a speech that focused on the importance of citybuilding, Mayor Vrbanovic announced that RBJ Schlegel has signed a $2.3 million sponsorship agreement, providing them the naming rights of the city’s newest district park. The South Kitchener District Park will be renamed RBJ Schlegel Park.
“It is fitting that the first multi-million dollar sponsorship the city has received comes from the Schlegel family, a family that epitomize citybuilding and who have long contributed to building a better Kitchener,” said Mayor Berry Vrbanovic. “It gives me great pride to announce that the Schlegels’ contribution to making Kitchener a healthier, happier and more connected city will continue with their investment in what will be the region’s largest, most comprehensive district park.”
Currently under construction, RBJ Schlegel Park will bring much needed active and passive recreation space to southwest Kitchener. The first phase of development will include artificial and natural turf multi-purpose sports fields, and a football field as well as open community event space, playground and splash play facilities, and multi-use pathways and trails. When complete, RBJ Schlegel Park will be one of the largest most active parks in the city, with a pool, indoor sports facility, outdoor entertainment space and more.
“There were several motivations for becoming involved in the development of this park and one of them was to honour the legacy of my maternal grandparents, Max and Florence Becker, who farmed in this area for their entire lives and were community builders in their own practical way,” stated James Schlegel, CEO, RBJ Schlegel. “We’re developing neighbourhoods in this area of Kitchener so the families and individuals we’re selling homes to will have the opportunity to enjoy the park and facilities but I also think it has the potential of supporting the entire city and beyond. Fundamentally what we do as an organization is create communities that are healthy, active and available to all ages so this is very much aligned with who we are.”
In his address, Mayor Vrbanovic also highlighted the success of resident-led citybuilding supported by Kitchener’s neighbourhood strategy (Love My Hood), including exponential growth of neighbourhood matching grants and placemaking grants and the success of recently expanded community garden and neighbourhood market programs.
He also noted that Kitchener’s economy continues to thrive across all sectors, thanks to the success of the city’s four-year economic development strategy (Make it Kitchener). He also highlighted strong financial leadership as budgets passed during this term of council continue to build an innovative, caring and vibrant city in an affordable, sustainable manner. Kitchener continues to have one of the most affordable taxation levels amongst large municipalities in Ontario, and debt levels in Kitchener continue to decrease at a time when many other municipalities are adding to their debt load.
Mayor Vrbanovic closed out the State of the City Address by sharing that, “We are all citybuilders” encouraging citizens to join him and others from our community in this journey of success so that one day we can all leave this community better than we found it.
Read the full text of the 2018 State of the City Address.
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For more information:
Erin Power
Communications and Marketing Associate, City of Kitchener
519-741-2200 ext.7547 | Erin.Power@kitchener.ca
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