🌳 The Hidden Forest in Old Town Is Now Open to the Public

☀️ Good morning NOTL. Here's what's in today's issue:

— NOTL News Crew

Strange week for Old Town real estate.

On Queen Street, crews continued dismantling the Royal George, 111 years of theatre history disappearing piece by piece into dumpsters. Four blocks away on Tuesday afternoon, a ribbon was cut on the opposite kind of project: the first public pathway through the Wilderness, five acres of forest tucked behind King Street that have remained off-limits for generations.

One landmark is coming down. Another is opening up.

The contrast feels almost too neat. As one piece of Old Town's history disappears, another becomes accessible for the first time. The town taketh away. The town giveth.

If you've ever walked along King Street near Regent and wondered about the forest behind the fence — the one that looks like it wandered in from somewhere much wilder than Old Town — you can finally find out.

On Tuesday, the Niagara Foundation cut the ribbon on the first public pathway through the Wilderness, the five-acre wooded property at 407 King St. that has remained private land for its entire existence.

That's the part worth sitting with: its entire existence.

This is a property whose history stretches back centuries, including a deep connection to Indigenous history that predates the town itself. Tim Johnson, president of the Niagara Academy for Indigenous Relations, spoke at Tuesday's opening about exactly that. Until this week, virtually no one in NOTL had legally set foot on the property.

The reason it's opening now comes down to one person's determination — in the best sense of the word. Ruth Parker, one of three sisters who owned the property, died in 2013. Her will stipulated that the heritage elements of the Wilderness be preserved and maintained for the benefit of the public.

The Niagara Foundation acquired the full property two years ago and took that instruction seriously, launching a restoration project worth more than $2.5 million to transform a forest that had seen better days into permanently protected green space.

What you'll see right now is, in the foundation's own words, rustic. A mulch path running from Regent Street through to King Street. Overgrowth being cleared. Hazardous trees being removed. And a long campaign ahead against an honour roll of invasive species: black locust, goutweed, garlic mustard, and ivy.

The plan calls for 500 to 750 native trees and shrubs to be replanted in stages, guided by a forest management report now being prepared. Deer, coyotes, and countless birds already call the property home. They're staying.

Tuesday's opening had the full small-town ceremony treatment: a butterfly release with students from Royal Oak Community School, a silent auction of butterfly paintings by local artists, and a ribbon-cutting led by Lauren and Vaughn Goettler, whose family foundation launched the fundraising effort with a $1 million pledge in 2022.

Here's what makes this more than a nice park story.

NOTL spends a lot of energy debating what gets built — the Rand Estate, the hospital site, Queen Street. The Wilderness is a rare example of land in the heart of Old Town moving permanently in the opposite direction: from private to public, from development potential to protected green space.

Forever.

More paths are coming. For now, go walk the first one.

🍿 Hollywood Comes to Town: The crew filming Beach Read, the adaptation of Emily Henry's bestseller starring Patrick Schwarzenegger and Phoebe Dynevor, is in NOTL through June 20, shooting at a home on Johnson Street with base camp in the Legion's parking lot on King. Expect brief traffic stops on Queen between King and Regent while cameras roll. If you loved the book, the casting news alone is worth forwarding. If you don't care about rom-coms, you still might want to know why there are semi-trucks at the Legion.

⚽️ The World Cup Kicks Off Today, and NOTL Already Got Paid: Canada plays its home opener at Toronto's BMO Field today, and NOTL is one of four Ontario communities sharing $550,000+ from Airbnb's FIFA World Cup 2026 Impact Program. The town's cut is $145,000 for Virgil Sports Park: new bleachers, soccer nets, training equipment, and a refreshed community meeting space, serving about 400 soccer participants a year. Worth noting the donor: Airbnb and NOTL have a complicated history on short-term rentals, so read it as good corporate citizenship or strategic goodwill, depending on where you stand. Either way, the fields at Virgil get better.

🏗️ Rand Estate Hotel Proposal Daws Opposition at Public Meeting:The Rand Estate hotel proposal faced significant opposition at council. Benny Marotta's third proposal for the Rand Estate — featuring five residential buildings, up to 270 units, and a five-storey Ritz-Carlton hotel — was the subject of a packed public meeting on June 2. No public speakers voiced support for the project, while members of SORE (Save Our Rand Estate) appeared with lawyers, planners, and engineers.

🏥 The Hospital Site Is Finally Moving: Council voted to launch a two-stage search for qualified proponents for 176 Wellington St., the former hospital site the town has owned since 2017. Nine years of limbo, now an actual process. What ends up there is one of the bigger open questions in Old Town, and the answer starts taking shape this year.

📝 What the New Official Plan Actually Says: Last week we told you council adopted the new Official Plan. Here's what's inside, courtesy of a deep dive in Toronto planning publication Novae Res Urbis. Growth gets focused on five communities (Virgil, Old Town, Glendale, St. David's, and Queenston) with Glendale as the designated strategic growth area. The housing play is medium density: townhomes and row houses on lots that used to hold one or two singles, which Zalepa calls "the sweet spot" for affordability. Farmland stays locked down. The Niagara Peninsula grows roughly 90 per cent of Ontario's grapes and two-thirds of its tender fruit, and the plan treats that as non-negotiable. And the curveball: the town wants to build an aerospace sector around the NOTL airport. Yes, aerospace. In NOTL. Watch that space.

Most choirs dream about Carnegie Hall. Two NOTLers just sang there.

Daryl Novak and Laura Lynn Harry joined a handful of fellow Chorus Niagara singers on the legendary New York stage last week as part of a special U.S. Memorial Day program. Chorus Niagara has been one of the region's best-kept musical secrets for decades — a symphonic choir that regularly punches far above what you'd expect from a regional ensemble, and apparently the people booking Carnegie Hall agree.

It's easy to forget how much serious musical talent lives quietly in a town this size until some of it ends up on the most famous stage in North America. If you've never caught a Chorus Niagara performance, their season runs out of Partridge Hall in St. Catharines — considerably closer than 57th Street.

Learn more about Chorus Niagara.

The Wilderness just became public for the first time, and most of us didn't even know it was there.

What's NOTL's most underrated outdoor spot, the place you'd take a friend but never post about?