Welland House plan up for approval

Strategy for cleanup, and to preserve salvageable artifacts, going to council

A strategy to save any surviving heritage artifacts in the huge pile of contaminated rubble that was the former Welland House hotel downtown is being recommended to city council Monday.

The St. Catharines heritage permit advisory committee approved a proposed documentation and salvage strategy Thursday for the former fivestorey building that was ravaged by fire July 12.

Developed by planning consultant MHBC for property owner 2272872 Ontario Inc., or DrugSmart Pharmacy Group, the strategy includes separating, cleaning and storing designated heritage materials to incorporate them into a future development.

Dan Currie, a heritage consultant with MHBC, said those salvageable materials are expected to primarily be brick and limestone.

“While we know they are there — they’re not necessarily combustible materials — the hotel has collapsed, and to the extent that there are good salvageable pieces we simply don’t know yet,” he told the committee.

“We expect that there likely is. You can see a few of these in the visible parts of the rubble.”

A pile of debris several metres high has been sitting on the property at the corner of Ontario and King Streets since the blaze. Because the 165-year-old Welland House was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, the property owner must obtain a heritage permit before clearing the site.

In order to obtain a heritage permit from the city, a documentation and salvage plan for any designated heritage attributes on the property is required.

Based on the plan presented by MHBC, committee members recommended city council approve the heritage permit, which will allow salvage efforts and documentation of debris to begin.

Currie said the site is contaminated with asbestos, mercury, lead and silicate.

“It’s considered a contaminated site, and all of the materials — the heritage materials, the others that will be trucked away — all have to be appropriately dealt with,” he told the committee.

“Any that aren’t able to be decontaminated won’t ultimately be salvageable, but the environmental consultant doesn’t think that’s going to be a big issue for the heritage materials. They’ll be separated, washed, decontaminated, set aside, placed on skids, wrapped in plastic and securely stored.”

Once salvaged, he said, the materials will be documented and the list will be provided to the city so it has a record of what’s been saved on the site.

Currie said the intent is to reuse the materials in a future development there. He added any redevelopment will have to go through St. Catharines’ site plan approval process, so there is a mechanism for the city to ensure any commemoration, interpretation and reuse of the materials occurs in an appropriate manner.

Welland House at 26-30 Ontario St. was built in 1856 and was the last of three grand spa hotels in the city that were famous internationally for their “healing waters.”

Its most recent use was as a student residence, but the building had been unoccupied since 2018.

In February 2020, city council asked staff to issue a notice of intention to designate the property under the Ontario Heritage Act at the recommendation of the heritage advisory committee. The notice was appealed by the owner to the conservation review board. Through a mediation process, the owner agreed to withdraw the appeal subject to the designation being limited to the core heritage structure.

Approval of the designation was on city council’s agenda for its meeting July 12, just hours after the building was destroyed. Council went ahead with the designation anyway, which has resulted in the required salvage and documentation plan.

The Ontario Fire Marshal’s office did not determine a cause of the fire, citing the extensive damage, and closed its investigation.