The final curtain

Court clears way for the demoli­tion of his­toric Royal George Theatre

An appeal of a March decision brought by Cen­tur­ion Corp. against Shaw Fest­ival’s plan to demol­ish the his­toric Royal George Theatre has been dis­missed.

“The Divi­sional Court clearly and unan­im­ously found what we already knew to be true: the town imple­men­ted a rig­or­ous and wholly appro­pri­ate pro­cess for approv­ing the Royal George rebuild,” said Tim Jen­nings, Shaw Fest­ival’s exec­ut­ive dir­ector and chief exec­ut­ive officer.

“We now have clar­ity to move for­ward with renewed momentum. We are excited to bring to life a new Royal George that will inspire, con­nect and enrich our com­munity for gen­er­a­tions to come …”

Jen­nings said Shaw Fest­ival has the required site plan approvals and demoli­tion per­mit from Town of Niagara­-on-­the-­Lake. He said demoli­tion began May 28 and is to be com­pleted by the end of this month.

“We are very happy with such a clear decision and are grate­ful for the extraordin­ary encour­age­ment and sup­port we con­tinue to receive from all levels of gov­ern­ment, the com­munity, local busi­nesses, donors and pat­rons,” said Jen­nings.

Cen­tur­ion Build­ing Corp. launched legal action in early Feb­ru­ary against Shaw Fest­ival to pre­vent demoli­tion of the Queen Street theatre, box office and two prop­er­ties on Vic­toria Street.

The Vic­toria Street houses at 178 and 188, though, were already demol­ished.

Nich­olas Colaneri, pres­id­ent of Cen­tur­ion Build­ing Corp., took legal action against Shaw Fest­ival and the town on whether the muni­cip­al­ity com­plied with its offi­cial plan and zon­ing bylaws, while also adher­ing to Ontario’s Plan­ning Act, the Ontario Her­it­age Act and the pro­vin­cial policy state­ment.

Colaneri also reques­ted the court declare the town acted unlaw­fully and unreas­on­ably and pause the town’s plan­ning approvals for the $80­mil­lion redevel­op­ment while the
applic­ation was decided.

In an earlier state­ment, Colaneri said the town and Shaw Fest­ival did not “sat­isfy” cri­teria of the pro­vin­cial or muni­cipal her­it­age require­ments to con­serve the his­toric build­ing. He said the Ontario Her­it­age Act requires a “con­ser­va­tion­first approach rather than a last resort …”

He said if the decision were to be allowed to stand, it would set “an extremely dan­ger­ous pre­ced­ent that her­it­age pro­tec­tions can be over­rid­den when enough pres­sure is applied.”

“That affects every res­id­ent, every her­it­age dis­trict, and every future decision in Niagara­on­the­Lake” and across the province.

“When those stand­ards fail in the most his­tor­ic­ally pro­tec­ted com­munity in Ontario, the sig­nal to every other muni­cip­al­ity is deeply troub­ling,” said Colaneri.

Shaw Fest­ival, Colaneri and the town had ini­tially agreed to a stay of the demoli­tion of the theatre and box office until Feb. 27 to allow for the judi­cial review.

In March, the Super­ior Court of Justice Divi­sional Court dis­missed Cen­tur­ion’s judi­cial review, say­ing in its decision “there is noth­ing in the record to sug­gest that the town coun­cil did not con­sider all of the rel­ev­ant factors or fail to com­ply with the OHA (Ontario Her­it­age Act).”

The court said there is evid­ence that the Royal George Theatre did not con­form to the require­ments of the Ontari­ans with Dis­ab­il­it­ies Act and the new theatre will address those issues with a new elev­ator, access­ible wash­rooms and other amen­it­ies.

“It is obvi­ous that the town con­cluded the Shaw’s pro­posal suf­fi­ciently addressed her­it­age con­cerns, was bene­fi­cial to the town as a whole, and a bet­ter option than attempt­ing to pre­serve the theatre in its cur­rent state,” said the court. “The decisions are trans­par­ent, intel­li­gible and jus­ti­fied and while they are not what the applic­ant hoped for, they are within the range of accept­able out­comes.”

The province’s $35­mil­lion invest­ment agree­ment in the new theatre is “secure” and Shaw Fest­ival has star­ted to receive funds

The court said Shaw Fest­ival is entitled to $30,000 in costs, while the muni­cip­al­ity should receive $25,000.

Jen­nings said in a May state­ment demoli­tion of the theatre had been sched­uled to begin in March. Dur­ing the delay other “site work and pre­par­a­tion” such as installing 20 geo­thermal wells to assist the build­ing achieve its zero car­bon design was com­pleted.

“But this delay has cer­tainly impacted our timelines,” he said.

“The Shaw has been work­ing under very tight timelines to meet the con­struc­tion mile­stones required by our fund­ing bod­ies and has already been delayed” when Colaneri appealed coun­cil’s decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Jen­nings said the province’s $35mil­lion invest­ment agree­ment in the new theatre is “secure” and Shaw Fest­ival has star­ted to receive funds.

“We are await­ing con­firm­a­tion of our fund­ing request from the fed­eral gov­ern­ment,” said Jen­nings.

By KEVIN WERNER REPORTER. Niagara Falls Review