Town of St. Marys unveils designs for 14 Church St. N during Doors Open

Former Mercury Theatre building to become a multi-generational community hub

St. Marys residents Scott and Samantha Crawford chat with town CAO Brent Kittmer during their Doors Open tour of the former Mercury Theatre building at 14 Church St. N.

By Galen Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Residents of and visitors to St. Marys had their first opportunity during Doors Open St. Marys Aug. 9 to explore first-hand the town’s plans for the former Mercury Theatre building at 14 Church St. N. now that initial renovations are complete.

Along with other historic buildings in town, 14 Church St. N., which the Town of St. Marys purchased in 2021, was opened to the public on Saturday after the completion of initial renovations, which were started in November 2023 and finished earlier this year.

As part of the Doors open event, residents and visitors had the opportunity to tour the building, look through designs and concept drawings for the building’s interior created by a+LiNK architecture inc. and the town’s downtown service location review committee, none of which have been approved by council at this point, and imagine the future uses of spaces within the building with the help of floorplans mapped out in tape on the building’s first and second floors, as well as in the basement.

“Today’s been fantastic; its’ been fantastic watching people come through the door and their faces just light up in seeing the vision for the space,” said Angela Brayham, a consultant working with the town on its downtown service location review, during the Doors Open event. “People are just excited. They’re just like, ‘Wow,’ ‘Exciting,’ ‘Lovely.’ It’s been a great day.”

“It’s a long ways from being done but if they hadn’t fixed it, it would have fell,” St. Marys resident Larry McLellan said after touring the building. “I’ve never been upstairs here, so this is cool. They planned the space well, I think. I’d love to come back when it’s done and see what it looks like.”

Scott and Samantha Crawford, also St. Marys residents who toured the former Mercury Theatre building on Saturday, said they were excited to see how many uses the town has planned for the space.

“I think it’s great to see all the uses it can have, right? Different floors and a lot of different uses on each floor,” Scott Crawford said. “I think it’s one of those things the town needs and when it’s done, it’s going to be a good addition.”

“You can just see a vast improvement from when they did their last open house. Just seeing that they’ve put a lot of thought in where they want things to go and the flow of it seems good,” Samantha Crawford added.

While the exact timing for when the interior of the building is finished is dependent on government grants and could still be a few years down the road even if council approves the designs later this month, it was obvious those who toured 14 Church St. N. on Saturday could see the building’s potential as a multi-generational hub, the concept and details for which were developed with extensive engagement with the public, town staff and local community groups.

“Even for the short list of uses that we prepared (with the downtown service location review committee), there just wasn’t enough space at 14 Church St. for everything (the community wanted),” town CAO Brent Kittmer said. “So, a+LiNK helped us go through a process of finding a way to make as many of those space common and flexible spaces so that no space is necessarily purpose-built and if you had a space, you could put one or two or more uses in it. So, through that process, we were actually able to accommodate many of the things we thought were important and slowly but surely, a really concrete vision for the building started to emerge.

“What we have today and what the public (saw during Doors Open) was what the committee blessed on June 23 to go forward. Really, it’s a vision for what we’re now describing as a multi-generational community hub.”

According to the designs, the building’s ground floor has been imagined as a welcoming community space where residents can congregate and participate in programming. In the designs, the space includes a lobby and reception area, a computer nook, a St. Marys Public Library Maker’s Space, two sound studios available for use by the community, a large multipurpose room for meetings and events, and several washrooms.

“The first floor is more focused on creative and active types of uses,” Kittmer said. “So, if you can envision yourself walking through the door, there is going to be a large, multi-purpose space that can be used for programming by our Early ON department, by our senior services department to help them build some of their programs where they’re facing challenges with space, but that space will also double as a space where if you just want to come in during the day and there is nothing else going on and you’re just a member of the public looking for a place to read or looking for some vibrancy, then there will be seating areas for that.

“The library’s Maker’s Space will be located on the first floor as well as their public-access computers. The Maker’s Space is a really interesting space because they’re fairly limited in their space at the library, so this will give them a chance to expand it, but in their future vision, now they can host classes there, they can host more purposely designed types of programs or workshops where people can learn how to use a 3D printer or robotics or any number of other things.”

On the second floor, the building design includes a lobby, several small office/study spaces, an office and large meeting room/classroom for adult-learning programs, another large multi-purpose room that can be divided into smaller spaces, and two washrooms.

“One of the things we realized is that we have a number of agencies coming to our community like the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario Works, Service Canada, and they’re hosting periodic workshops that serve our community, so we wanted to make sure there’s space for them in the building as well,” Kittmer said.

“If you look at the upper level, it will be more of a community space where you can go and get service. … There is still a large, multipurpose room up in that area that we see as being used for programming by senior services, by Early ON, by things like that as well.”

According to Kittmer, the office/study spaces will likely be transitioned into offices for town staff at some point in the future when space for additional staff is needed.

“In the immediate term, we can see (these spaces) used by people who need to get out of their house and need a quiet study space – they can drop in, they can book it. They could be used by community groups, service clubs; groups like the poetry circle and the art group that need a small community space to come and meet.

“ … That and we purposely designed them in looking at the town’s needs in the future because we know, … despite the perception we have too many staff, as our community grows, as our population is increasing, naturally, our service profile will also change and probably increase. That will mean we will need to have more staff at some point in the future. I’m not saying today; I’m saying five to 10 years in the future. We, as an organization, are running out of staff space, so we can see ourselves naturally growing into 14 Church St.”

Kittmer said he expects the committee-approved designs to go before council at some point later this month. Until that point, he is encouraging locals to have a look at the designs and concept drawings and send any feedback to him directly at bkittmer@town.stmarys.on.ca.