MARCH
The City of New Westminster announces it’s sold the Merchant Square office tower for $36.5 million to Kingswood Capital and Duke Holdings – a company jointly owned by businessmen Joseph Segal and Suki Sekhon. When the Uptown Property Group pulled out of the project in 2012, the city decided to build the office tower on its own because it viewed employment-generating uses to be a critical component of the city’s economic development and downtown revitalization goals.
Parents in New Westminster form an ad-hoc group – Parents for Public Education – to have a voice in the 2014 civic election. Parents who came together as a result of ongoing budget troubles in the school district decided to form P4PE.
Cassidy Tecklenborg is named New Westminster’s 2014 May Queen – carrying on a longstanding family tradition. Her grandmother and aunt were both May Queens and her mom and another aunt were members of the May Queen suite.
New Westminster city council slashes the city’s grant to the Hyack Festival Association in response to ongoing concerns about “dysfunction” within the organization. While the association had received more than $150,000 in cash and in-kind services to put on the Hyack Parade, the Santa Claus Parade, Canada Day celebrations, a summer concert series, the Miss New Westminster Ambassador program and other events on the city’s behalf, the city has trimmed the grant to $15,000 cash for the Hyack Parade and Canada Day fireworks.
The City of New Westminster presses to have several truck routes removed so trucks can be pushed onto perimeter roads surrounding the city. The city asks TransLink to remove Royal Avenue, East Eighth Avenue and portions of East Columbia Street and Ewen Avenue from the city’s truck network.
