Posted May 21, 2014, 5:29 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thistleclub
Will be interested to see the business case.
Finding a future for St. Mark’s Church
(Hamilton Spectator, June 24 2013)
Boarded up St. Mark's Anglican Church on Bay Street South could be rescued from decay and given a new future under a city plan to turn the building into "cultural programming space."
The city is considering spending $1 million to $2 million to upgrade the vacant building and have it administered by staff at nearby Whitehern Historic House and Garden.
An open house at St. Mark's will take place Tuesday for city staff to present details about the proposal. The meeting is to see if the idea flies with neighbours, says Anna Bradford, the director of the Tourism and Culture Division for the city.
"Whitehern is a beautiful property but there is not enough programming space, especially when schools come to visit," she says, adding that a business case must be put together before the work on St. Mark's is done.
Students and other visitors to Whitehern could be directed to the former church for presentations, and it could also be used for small artistic events such as theatre or poetry readings.
For nearly a decade the city has been struggling to find a use for St. Mark's. The city bought the property in 1994 for $425,000 after its former owner, the Anglican diocese, announced plans to turn the rundown property into a highrise apartment complex.
Neighbourhood residents objected to the move and the city moved in as a peacemaker to keep the property as it was.
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Back when the City would intervene to stop a rundown church from being turned into a high rise.
Hard to believe it has been 20 years. Time is a flat circle.
“In 2010, Hamilton’s City Council directed staff to complete an in-house feasibility study to operate St. Mark's as a cultural programming space to be administered by staff at Whitehern Historic House & Garden… in 2012, staff sought and obtained reconfirmation of Council’s direction to conduct an in-house feasibility study to operate St. Mark's as a cultural programming space to be administered by staff at Whitehern Historic House & Garden.” In 2014, "The latest scheme, to be presented to the general issues committee Wednesday, would see the derelict building turned into a 'cultural programming space' linked to the Whitehern museum."
More details in St. Mark's Feasibility Study (PED12059(a)) and Appendix A to Report PED12059(a) (St. Mark’s Cultural Programming Space Feasibility Study).
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"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Last edited by thistleclub; May 21, 2014 at 5:45 PM.
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