To our community,
The Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning greatly values the Juniper Café as part of the Tett community. Since joining us in 2016, the Juniper Café has contributed to the vibrancy of our shared space and we appreciate its role in offering a welcoming place for connection, comfort, and nourishment.
The Tett Centre exists to serve the community as a vibrant, inclusive arts hub. That includes supporting meaningful tenant relationships, ensuring public access to a wide range of arts and cultural experiences, and managing our operations with transparency, accountability, and care. Over the past year, the Tett Centre has engaged in extensive, good-faith sublease renewal discussions with Juniper Café. These negotiations have involved Tett Centre management staff and the Executive Committee of our Board of Directors, in consultation with the City of Kingston as the owner of the J.K. Tett Centre building. At every step, we have carefully considered Juniper Café's requests and worked to balance their concerns as a for-profit business with our mandate and responsibilities as a not-for-profit community arts organization operating a public facility in a heritage building.
While we appreciate Juniper Café's efforts to engage the public in dialogue about affordability and local business, the current offer reflects a generous level of community support—one that balances Juniper Café's interests with our responsibility to operate sustainably and treat all tenants equitably. We want to provide some clarity around the current sublease offer and the rationale behind it:
Tett Centre mandate: Our mandate as a not-for-profit arts organization is to operate a City-owned heritage facility as an accessible, multi-use arts centre that supports cultural vitality across the region. This includes subleases with a number of not-for-profit tenants—arts organizations that directly advance our mandate—as well as one commercial, for-profit tenant: the Juniper Café. As a registered charity, we have legal obligations to ensure all sublease agreements are fair, sustainable, and aligned with our charitable mandate.
Financial sustainability: As a not-for-profit organization, the Tett Centre has a responsibility to operate with sound financial stewardship. Our sublease arrangements follow a tiered pricing approach: through the recent sublease renewal process, a current fixed annual base rent increase of 2.25% has been applied to not-for-profit tenant organizations, reflecting their alignment with our mandate and eligibility for tax exemptions, while the Juniper Café as our sole commercial tenant is subject to different terms, including a slightly higher fixed annual increase of 2.5%. This tiered approach is standard practice in not-for-profit arts facilities, where commercial services operate under different terms than charitable not-for-profit organizations.
Revenue from sublease and short-term room rentals supports roughly 60% of our operating costs (as per 2023 financials)—funds that are essential to maintaining a heritage facility, delivering accessible arts programming, and serving our community.
Supportive and below-market sublease offer: The proposed sublease for the Juniper Café reflects below-market rates and includes a fixed 2.5% annual increase over the sublease term—lower than the 3.0% annual escalation rate currently applied to other commercial for-profit tenants in City-owned buildings.
Patio access and additional value: The sublease also offers additional benefits. The Juniper Café has seasonal use of a beautiful waterfront patio, which was historically not included in their sublease. The new sublease formalizes patio access at a 50% discounted rate, which will remain fixed with no annual increases for five years. Cleaning and maintenance services for shared facilities, such as washrooms, are also included in the sublease at no additional cost.
Importantly, from 2019 to 2024, Juniper Café’s sublease rate remained unchanged, as annual increases were deferred entirely—despite inflation and rising facility costs over that five-year period.
Signage: Signage is not included as part of individual sublease agreements. However, it remains a regular topic of discussion at our Tett Centre Community meetings with all subtenants. In 2025, the Tett Centre will be implementing new building-wide wayfinding designed to improve navigation and enhance the overall visitor experience. Juniper Café will be included in this process and is expected to benefit from increased visibility and clear, coordinated signage throughout the facility.
Fairness and consistency across tenants: Offering a commercial tenant more favourable terms than our mission-aligned not-for-profit arts tenants would be inequitable and inconsistent with the Tett Centre’s mandate and governance obligations. All of our not-for-profit arts tenants have agreed to subleases with similar annual rent increases, recognizing that modest, predictable increases are essential for maintaining the Tett Centre and the services we offer to the community.
A thorough and respectful process: Over the course of our negotiations—now extending beyond 12 months—we have carefully reviewed and responded to each of the Juniper Café’s requests, making adjustments where possible and providing supporting information and rationale. The current offer was developed in good faith, with care and consideration, and reflects our best effort to meet the Juniper Café's needs in a manner that aligns with our responsibilities as a charitable not-for-profit organization.
We remain committed to a fair sublease agreement that honours our partnership with Juniper Café as well as our integral tenant not-for-profit arts organizations, and ensures the long-term sustainability of the Tett Centre for the benefit of the entire community.
Sincerely,
Board of Directors
Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning