Changes are coming to the Riverfront Festival Plaza in Windsor.
The final details of what that will be is still to be decided, but a $3-million shade structure is in the mix.
Windsor Council has given Landmark Engineers the green light to continue with design work on the space.
Concept art for upgrades to the Riverfront Festival Plaza (Photo from Landmark Engineers Inc. designs)
Company owner Dan Krutsch says you can expect some kind of covering on the west side of the plaza.
"Council's endorsement to commit to preserving the opportunity to put a canopy or large shade structure over at least the west end of the property so a lot of the users really expressed a lot of interest in having some type of a large shade structure over that part of the stage area"
Krutsch says the shade structure has more than one purpose.
"It provides obviously inherent shade to the users that want to watch any events on the stage. It's also to extend the season a little bit to protect against inclement weather to provide a little different experience for the people down in those events that relate to the stage"
He says the plan is to create separated areas away from the stage zone.
"During events people can remove themselves from the stage area and explore, go sit back quite and have a conversation with someone have a seat on the bench wall or seat wall, there'll be some water features maybe, maybe some mist walls as you heard one of the delegates suggest, those are all being considered"
$5.58-million is pre-committed through 2020 on final concept plans that will add a canopy for shade and other improvements.
Krutsch says it's too soon to talk about a final cost but it could be in the range of $13-million.
-- with files from Ricardo Veneza --