In the rapidly changing landscape of Kingston’s Williamsville District, the limestone building located at the corner of Victoria and Princess streets — and once known as the Karnofski Bakery — will remain the same.
Ryan Leary, senior heritage planner with the City of Kingston, says that in 2010, the limestone building, which dates back to the late 1840s, was given protection under the Heritage Act.
As a result, the new owners of the property, Waterloo-based company IN8 Developments, will be required to maintain, restore and incorporate the limestone historic site into its new 10-storey condo development.
“As part of this development, the owner is going to put in an information interpretive display to highlight the history of the Karnofski Bakery and the growth and history of Williamsville,” Leary said.
According to Leary, the village of Williamsville saw a lot of growth during Kingston’s time as Canada’s capital. The Karnofski Bakery was one of the first constructed in the area, which was the village’s downtown at the time.
Chris Hohban, site supervisor for the new condo development, says uncovering one of Kingston’s first bakeries was like breaking into a time capsule.
“One of the real neat features is that we did expose one piece of limestone that actually identified the date, which was 1847,” Hohban said.
The little piece of history will be restored with period-specific finishes and incorporated as commercial space in the condo building.
Hohban says restoring it will be a difficult and expensive task. The current budget sits at $300,000.
“It’s definitely suffered a lot of water damage so there’s a lot of rotting. It’s not too safe right now. We have to reinforce the whole building itself before we start putting in floors,” he added.
Hohban says the development is “a large and expensive project,” but historians like Leary say it’s a win for the city and Williamsville residents.
“I think it’s a nice precedent that we can encourage for future development,” Leary said.
The commercial tenant for the historic building is still unknown, but the mixed-use development is slated for completion in 2021.