The Boathouse reopening pushed to 2024

The Boathouse in Victoria Park will sit empty for a while longer.

The group behind the venue’s transformation told CityNews Kitchener two weeks ago that there had been another pushback in their reopening plans.

Walkinshaw Holdings was given approval by Kitchener council last year to transform The Boathouse into an upgraded live music, food, and entertainment establishment. At the time, it was expected the venue’s doors would reopen this summer.

However, earlier this month, we learned construction hadn’t started yet and was set to begin this summer.

In an updated statement released on Tuesday, Walkinshaw Holdings confirmed that construction ‘will start this year’ and the reopening is now expected in 2024. No further timeline was provided.

The statement read, “Good things take time. The pieces are all coming together. It’s taken this long to go through the process, the design, the planning – we’re not going to rush it now! We’re going to do it right.”

The Boathouse has been vacant since 2019, when the previous tenant stepped away. The City of Kitchener initially wanted a new operator to be in place by early 2020 but COVID-19 led to a hiatus.