Saint Andrews Seeks To Re-Purpose Historic Courthouse

The town of St. Andrews, New Brunswick, is looking to repurpose its historic courthouse, which is a national historic site and provincially designated. Bill Hicks from Broken Shovel Consulting has been hired to look at the repurposing of the courthouse. The town is seeking community input to determine the best use for the building that will be sustainable and maintain its heritage character. 

Mayor Brad Henderson said the town is considering different categories of uses, such as civic use, cultural use, a mixture of both, and private sector use. The town wants to know how much change the community is willing to accept and he is looking for a new use that will be sustainable and contribute to the community in ways beyond being part of the built heritage complex. The town has already received a proposal from a party interested in taking over the building, but they want to make sure that the proposal aligns with the community's goals.

"Bill was suggested to us," said Mayor Henderson to host Vicki Hogarth on an episode of Your Town Matters on CHCO-TV. "When we decided that we really wanted to have a visioning exercise for the courthouse, of what it is today and what it could be in the future, very quickly, a number of different people in the province actually said, Bill's the guy to talk to."

The town is looking for a greater community purpose for the courthouse, while respecting the history of the building, ideally.  Henderson says the town wants to hear from everyone in the community, including those who are and who are not heritage building advocates. The town is seeking community input to determine the best use for the building that will be sustainable and maintain its heritage character. A public survey will be conducted, and a mail-out with survey questions will be sent to the community. There will also be a public open house in mid-June to discuss the results of the survey.

The town wants to maintain the heritage character of the building, but to accommodate a new use, some changes will have to be made to the building. The town is wondering if the community would accept more modern exterior materials. The success of the project will be measured by coming up with a sustainable use for the building that the community and council are happy with. The goal is to find a use that will work for a long time and bring visitors to the building. The building is in a residential area, so the town wants to make sure that any new use does not disrupt the neighbourhood.

"There's no question it is an incredibly historic building, really important in the context of the town of St. Andrews and the county," said Hicks with regards to the importance of the project. "It's a county courthouse, and it was a courthouse for a very long time, through that sort of colonial period, early post Confederation period, right up until, say, 2016, I believe. And it's incredibly intact."

The town is looking forward to working with Bill Hicks to repurpose the building and find a new use that will be sustainable and maintain its heritage character.