Heritage Designation Curse Strikes Again!

Flames have resolved another troublesome heritage designation issue that City Council has been deliberating for over a year. On July 12, the 140-year-old Welland Hotel, a St. Catharine’s landmark, burned to the ground. At 8:00 that evening, while the remains of the old hotel were still smoldering, Council passed a resolution naming it a heritage site.

The blaze happened only months after another potential heritage designee, the GM smokestack, was knocked to smithereens by an errant backhoe.

“Accidents do happen,” the Mayor declared when approached for comment by the SubStandard. “While we’re sorry to see the old wreck of a building go, there are a couple of upsides.”

 One of the benefits is that the disappearance of the hotel removes an item from City Council’s busy agenda, he said. “What with the pandemic and all, we’ve got a lot on our plate. Now that it’s just a heritage basement, we don’t have to worry about what to do with it.”

The other benefit the Mayor pointed to is that the demise of the hotel, like the smokestack, benefits both property owners and potential real estate developers.

“Isn’t that what heritage is all about?” the Mayor asked. “Using the old to benefit the here and now? We have a forward-looking Council that quite correctly sees both past and present as needing to benefit the citizens of today. Losing the hotel building means gaining some profitable real estate for somebody.”

A spokesman for the city’s heritage committee, Moderna Bettor, speculated that the hotel’s demise was due to what she described as “the heritage designation curse.” She pointed to the old library, the 19^th century Barnes and Whitman knife factory — now a world-class skateboard park — and YMCA building as also being destroyed while under consideration for heritage status.

She suggested that the work of heritage preservation could best be conducted moving forward by disbanding the heritage committee. That way no other buildings could be recommended for heritage designation to City Council, she pointed out.

“It’s the only way to end the curse,” she said. “Without potential heritage designations, tangible evidence of St. Catharine’s past will be successfully preserved. Unless of course those properties are needed for some other vital and important purpose, like parking lots. I mean, what good are heritage properties if you can’t park on them?”