A celebration of all-things francophone is in the works to officially open the new Le Centre Culturel La Ronde building.
The official opening for the French cultural centre is Sept. 25-29, with an outdoor concert being staged on Sept. 25 for Franco-Ontarian flag day.
To allow for the outdoor concert for local schools, at its May 14 meeting Timmins council approved closing Mountjoy Street North between Algonquin Boulevard and Fifth Avenue from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sept. 25. The organization also has a noise bylaw exemption for that day from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
"Approximately 1,400 students and teachers will gather in the morning with another 900 students and teachers in the afternoon," reads a letter from Lynne Guertin, who is on the organizing committee.
"Although we have a beautiful new building, we do not have the capacity to host this many students indoors."
The Connecting Link work will still be happening on Algonquin Boulevard at that time, with traffic being diverted off the main road at Mountjoy Street.
As such Coun. Andrew Marks said he is in favour of celebrating the new building and called for extra planning for the closure.
"I would just caution that that's a business day at a major intersection that will still have Connecting Link issues with detours. So I'd ask that we take some extra measures for some signage to be very clear and some proactive steps so that we're not causing more of a traffic issue because of that particular closure," he said.
The official opening is being held nearly a year after the organization moved into the new building.
The previous building suffered irreparable damage in a 2015 fire and was demolished in 2017. Before the doors to the new modern facility opened, the group worked out of a Kent Street building and later a space at the Timmins Square.
