Woodlawn Memorial Park Crematorium shuts down

Hundreds of customers will need to take their cremation needs elsewhere as a crematorium in Guelph shuts down. CTV’s Colton Wiens reports.

The crematorium at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Guelph has shut down.

“It had reached its life cycle, so, unfortunately, they had to shut down operations here in Guelph,” Rebecca Kit, general manager at Woodlawn Memorial Park said.

In 2012, the province allowed funeral homes to start operating crematoriums. That change resulted in a decline of revenue at the Woodlawn Memorial Park crematorium.

In 2021, the 80-acre cemetery started leasing the crematorium to Southwest Crematoriums, but Southwest Crematoriums said the cremation equipment has reached the end of its lifespan and can’t be repaired.

“The retorts are completely shut down here now in Guelph. It was at the end of the year. Southwest did investigate whether or not they could possibly put new retorts into the crematorium. With the age of this building, it’s just not a good fit to retrofit new machines in this building. So unfortunately, they did have to shut down completely,” Kit said.

Woodlawn has around 500 clients who have already paid for a cremation, and they are being offered the options of either taking a full refund or being cremated at another Southwest facility.

“Really the only difference is that our pre-paid cremation clients will not be cremated here in Guelph anymore. Their prepaid cremations will be honoured at a Southwest facility, either in Waterloo or probably Milton would be another close one,” Kit said. “They also have the option of reaching out to us, and we can provide them with a refund. And we are obligated to provide that refund with the interest earned back to the client.”

While the crematorium is closed, Kit said they could explore options for using the space.

“There is no bearing on our operations as a cemetery whatsoever. Woodlawn Memorial Park is - we’re continuing to evolve and grow. Those services are certainly still available here. It is a bit of a loss because we will be losing Southwest as a leasing customer to us. So, we’ll have to find a new revenue opportunity there,” Kit said.