St. Michael’s hospital has filed an application with the city to demolish its five-storey Shuter Street wing, built in 1910 with additions in the 1950s, to be replaced with a modern six-storey building for an expanded emergency department.
The new Shuter building, currently proposed as “a modern glass volume that provides a sleek foil to the heavy masonry buildings of the past,” will be connected to the Bond wing, a 1937 building by a two-storey entrance hall. Though the 1910 building is not protected, City Council has stated its intentions to designate the Bond wing as a heritage building worth of preservation.
“The proposed development has been designed to balance the evolving needs of St Michael’s Hospital while respecting the existing Bond Wing,” states the Heritage Impact Assessment filed in April. “The proposed alterations will improve universal access to the hospital and will allow for a better user experience of the Bond Wing, appropriately conserving the heritage resources…. While the new Shuter Building will require alterations to the Bond Wing, the design respects and maintains the relationship of the lobby entrance and existing courtyard through the use of transparent materials and setback from the existing building. As part of the rehabilitation of the designated Bond Wing building, conservation work including any necessary cleaning, restoration and repair of masonry will be completed as required.”
The proposal includes improvements to the pedestrian realm on Bond and Shuter streets. “Bond Street carries a complete redesign of the sidewalk and streetscape cross-section, including the reintroduction of street trees, curb side planting, lighting and supportive landscape on the parallel private property adjacent to the street,” states a letter to the city from the hospital’s lawyers.
The plan, on the northeast corner of the hospital site, is just part of a much larger scale renewal. The 17-storey Patient Care Tower, on the southwest corner of the property, is currently under construction.
Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Heritage Impact Assessment: 30 Bond Street, St. Michael’s Hospital