In their latest update, the KESKUS group has announced that the Estonian community will have to move out of 958 Broadview Ave by October, 2022. The problem is that the new International Estonian Centre is nowhere near completion. In fact, construction at the 9 Madison Ave site had barely begun.
The original plan had included only one move, directly from 958 Broadview Ave to 9 Madison Ave. Unfortunately, this is not to be. After a 21 month leaseback period, the developer, Diamond Kilmer, is ready to move on. This will leave our community temporarily homeless. It also means that Estonian cultural groups will have to move twice. Once out of the current Eesti Maja to whatever place they can find, and second, from their new temporary home to the International Estonian Centre.
The recent update blames this predicament on “the COVID pandemic”, “slow and cumbersome municipal and TTC approvals”, “supply chain and construction challenges with tendering and trades”, and “financial pressures on EHTL itself”. Less charitably, it could be pointed out that this is one more broken promise by KESKUS, and that it has had a history of delays and overpromises. One could also ask if the fact that Diamond Kilmer recently settled with the City for only 14 stories (maximum 207 units, including 8 affordable home ownership units) will affect the final sales price of the 958 Broadview Ave property. But I am not going to do that here.
The purpose of this article is not to find fault with any individual or group. Instead, I want to point out that the possibility of the unfortunate chain of misfortunes we are experiencing was always inherent in the KESKUS project. By seeking to rebuild the Estonian House with a development partner (as was originally planned) or to sell it to a developer and build ourselves a new home, we exposed ourselves to the pitfalls facing all big projects.
This is why I had always felt that renovating the Eesti Maja piecemeal would have been much better plan. It is obviously too late now, but if begun, say, in 2008, it would have been do-able. The big advantage is that it would have been composed of many SMALL projects. Currently, we really have one BIG project. This implies many single points of failures and many choke points. This is the reason why so many large-scale military, government, and private projects are plagued with cost overruns and endless delays. Why would we expect KESKUS to be different?
In contrast, any delay or difficulty with one sub-project in the renovation approach, say a kitchen renovation, would only affect that sub-project. It would not affect the other sub-projects. Another advantage is that if some unforeseen event, like COVID, happens, it would have only adversely affect those projects incomplete at the time of lockdown. All the previous sub-projects would have been completed, and the ones not started could simply be delayed.
It has been claimed that the money for Eesti Maja’s renovation was not there. To see that this isn’t true, consider the fact that the KESKUS raised millions. If you can raise millions for a new building, then you can raise $50,000 for a new kitchen. We would also be able to exploit one the great strengths of our community – our volunteer tradition. Seedrioru, Kotkajärv and Jõekääru all have well-attended talgud to this day. Many of the projects comprising an Eesti Maja restoration could have been assigned to volunteer workers. If the Eesti Maja Sõbrad group had formed a decade earlier, think what they could have accomplished! Another source of funds is government grants. From what I have seen in politics, all levels of government like to shower multicultural groups with grant money. For proof, note that when the Estonian House finally applied for its first grant – to fix its badly leaking roof, it got it immediately.
The sequence of these projects could also be designed so that the upgrades of our rentable spaces would go first. With better and newer facilities, we would likely receive higher rents and have lower vacancy rates, than what we received for those halls after they had been purposely neglected for years.
Were there any untapped sources of operational income in the old Eesti Maja? I can think of two. First, we could have opened the parking lot every weekday morning for commuters. Even if we raised only $100 per day, that would raise an additional $26,000 per year. Another underutilized aspect of 958 Broadview was our street-front. I would have moved the pub from the basement to the front. After Whistler’s closed, it would have been the only pub/restaurant for many blocks. This would have been both a revenue generating venture and a cultural facility at the same time.
Oh well. The road not taken…
