Parts of Bank Street were closed to commuter traffic Jan. 8-9 as the historic facade of the Metropolitan Bible Church was reattached to a new condominium development on the corner of Bank and Gladstone.
The 73-year-old red-brick facade, which weighs roughly 136,000 kilograms, took two of the largest cranes in Ottawa to move, according to Urban Capital Property Group.
“This was a gift to us, to have a bit of the history of the church preserved in perpetuity,” says Lou Ranahan, executive director of the Metropolitan Bible Church, which has since moved to a new location on Prince of Wales Drive.
The four storey brick facade, seemingly engulfed by the construction site, is the result of an architectural compromise between the City of Ottawa and Urban Capital Property Group, as the original church was designated a historical property in 2003.
Urban Capital incorporated part of the original building into its new design, while not exceeding building height restrictions in the area, as prescribed by the city.
“I think our design, which took two years of going through city processes, was pretty well reflective of the heritage context,” says Urban Capital owner David Wex. “It didn’t slavishly replicate the building; that was not what we wanted to do.”
According to Wex, the project posed significant challenges both logistically and architecturally.
Normally, the facade would have been taken apart brick-by-brick and subsequently reassembled, which would involve marking and cataloguing each piece individually.
Instead, the facade was secured in its entirety with a custom built metal frame and stored in the excavation pit of the construction site while the rest of the church was demolished. The wall remained in that pit while the foundations and basic structure of the site was built around it. This was the first time this engineering technique was used in Ottawa, according to Wex.
David Flemming, president of Heritage Ottawa, says he worked with the development group since their purchase of the property in 2008 to ensure that the condos would not take away from the area’s historical nature.
Although there were originally concerns from residents, Wex says that it has become a popular project within the community.
The unique facade was built in the style of a theatre, since the bank that originally gave the building loan wanted assurance that they could resell the building if the church could not repay, said Metropolitan Bible Church communications specialist Karen Henderson.
The nine-story condominium, which dwarfs the facade, still adheres to other aspects of heritage conservation, as the neighbourhood is designated as a mid-rise building area. Flemming says the issue of height restrictions is especially important to his group.
He says the key to conserving heritage buildings in the area is not to mimic the original design, but to create something that is in keeping with the architecture in the area.
“I think we’ve got a good modern building that allows the original heritage to shine through,” Wex says.
The condos are scheduled for occupancy starting this fall.