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Second chances for Peterborough’s priceless heritage

Photo: One noteworthy example of a successful adaptive reuse project was the conversion of this former post office into 91 market-rate units

By

Erik R. Hanson

Buildings and architecture, Community, Adaptive reuse

Published Date: Sep 11, 2008

One of the greatest challenges to creating a healthy downtown is getting people to live there. While Peterborough’s historic centre is full of beautiful heritage buildings, most have empty upper floors. Until recently, few owners were willing to risk the cost of renovations when the rental market downtown seemed dubious at best.

This challenge, however, is beginning to change. Several under-utilized buildings have been bought and some of the spaces converted to rental accommodations. One noteworthy example is a former post office that was converted into 91 market-rate units. If there was any doubt that a market existed for high-end downtown rental units, it was quickly dispelled when the building was fully pre-leased before completion.

From a heritage perspective, there are a few points of interest about this post office. It was the first post-war building in Peterborough designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. Built to replace the late 19th-century Romanesque post office around the corner, it was meant to have been constructed in 1914 but was delayed because of war. Construction took three years to complete. When it finally opened in 1955, it was heralded as the “most modern post office in Canada.” The building, designed by local firm Craig and Strong, was occupied by the federal government until the late 1990s. It then stood vacant for several years. In 2002, AON Inc. bought it and began planning the conversion to residential units. Construction began in 2004 but was promptly halted in July by a flash flood that left most of downtown Peterborough under water. Work began again in the fall; the building was ready for occupancy a year later.

Fortunately, many of the building’s original features remain. Some have also been uniquely adapted to serve a valuable, new purpose. For instance, because the post office was outfitted with heavy sorting machinery, the building’s concrete floors had to be heavily reinforced. This feature ultimately enabled the basement to be converted into a parking garage, an appealing feature for this project.

City staff worked closely with the project architects – Lett Architects – to ensure that the defining features of the building were protected. Although the original steel window frames could not be saved, the replacements – while not exact replicas – maintain the horizontal emphasis. In addition, the new design called for the complete demolition of the interior to insert a third floor within the envelope of the original two-storey building. The front façade of the building also remains unchanged. The owners even replicated the original lettering over the doors when naming the new apartment building Rivulet Courtyard.

Because the post office was outfitted with heavy sorting machinery, the building’s concrete floors had to be heavily reinforced. This feature ultimately enabled the basement to be converted into a parking garage, an appealing feature for this project.

As a designated property, the post office was eligible for inclusion in the city’s Heritage Property Tax Relief Program – a 20 per cent annual reduction in property taxes in exchange for a registered agreement to maintain the heritage attributes of the building to recognized conservation standards. The post office project has become an interesting case study for the viability of this program.

Since the building had only been designated as part of the site plan approval process, it was vulnerable to demolition from any plan that sought instead to intensify it. The site is also zoned for the city’s highest level of density, so the post office could have been replaced by a multi-storey building. The heritage value of a post-war modernist building would have been a hard sell in a battle against a larger development generating more taxes. The owners, however, came to the conclusion that the retention and rehabilitation of the building was cost-effective because of the rebate. This conclusion would suggest that the program is sufficiently financially robust to make a difference in the conservation of heritage resources.

While under government ownership, the building was not taxed municipally. Now, it generates nearly $92,000 – less the heritage property tax relief. It seems that there is a strong argument for the program in these numbers. Some would claim, however, that a complete redevelopment of the site would have generated far more taxes without any rebate reduction. This suggestion, of course, fails to recognize the value of the embedded energy in the existing structure, the cost of producing new materials and products, the fossil fuels to ship those goods and materials, the cost and energy in demolition and the impact on landfill capacity. Nor does it reflect the value added to the downtown from a building of character or the cachet of a heritage property.

Environmental sustainability and heritage marketing are becoming strong economic drivers in their own right. But, most importantly, every new building that replaces an old one deprives us of having our heritage around us, connecting us to our past and helping us map our future. And in the end, isn’t that priceless?

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