Removing St. Brigid’s pews touted as boost to rental options for deconsecrated church

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The City of Ottawa’s built heritage subcommittee has approved a plan to remove pews from the nave of St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts to make it more flexible as a rental space.

Architect Barry Padolsky, heritage consultant to the centre, said there was a demand for distinctive spaces for social events such as weddings, exhibitions and corporate gatherings.

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Padolsky pointed to All Saints, a former Anglican church in Sandy Hill that was transformed into a multi-use community space in 2016 after it was purchased in 2015 by a group of investors.

“St. Brigid’s would like to do the same,” Padolsky said. “It’s a wonderful assembly space that has so much character.”

The limestone church, deconsecrated in 2007, was sold to members of Ottawa’s Irish community to create St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts and the National Irish Canadian Cultural Centre. The basement of the building has already been repurposed as a pub and a multi-use space.

St. Brigid’s attracted national attention in 2022. At the time, arts activities were halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United People of Canada (TUPOC), a group loosely affiliated with the convoy protest, rented the space to create an “embassy,” leading to a standoff and a legal battle when landlord Patrick McDonald gave notice that he was evicting the group. 

Removing the pews will allow for events with 300 to 500 attendees. Rental costs for arts events have not been enough to cover a mounting deficit to meet the costs of conserving the building that was built in 1889-1890, the heritage subcommittee heard.

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A 2023 report concluded it would cost over $18 million to conserve the building’s aging heritage infrastructure, not including soft costs and the cost of replacing or repairing features that were not of heritage significance, but still deemed essential.

St. Brigid’s is an eclectic Victorian-style building with Gothic Revival form and Renaissance Baroque Revival details, and is considered a landmark in Lowertown, with its towers visible from far away. It became the parish for the Irish Catholic working class of Lowertown, while Notre Dame Basilica served the French-Canadian population.

However, attempts to increase revenue have been thwarted because the fixed pews limit the potential uses of the space. In addition, the pews themselves were part of the building’s heritage designation, along with elaborate interior features such as vaulted ceilings, polychromed walls, carved woodwork, the organ, the altar and stained-glass windows.

The church received heritage designation under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1981, and a bylaw passed by the council of the former City of Ottawa in 1989 included the interior.

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At the time, little consideration was given to adaptive re-use. In 2007, a series of pews were removed near the altar to make space for a temporary stage. That offered more flexibility, but the remaining pews continued to be a challenge, said a heritage department staff report to the subcommittee.

“Finding a suitable use for the building outweighs the loss of the pews in the nave. The pew removal will provide a wider range of rental options, which will in turn assist in the long-term preservation of the building,” said the report, which urged leniency to make better use of the space and to make the space more financially viable.

“The removal of the pews was seen as a relatively minor intervention that could reap large benefits for the long-term viability of the space.”

Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante, vice-chair of the subcommittee, said that, when she was first elected in 2022, she heard of many potential new uses for former churches, from climbing gyms to skateboard facilities.

Removing the pews and building an even floor space at St. Brigid’s will be no simple matter. The pews are anchored to platforms about two inches higher than the aisles. That means that, after the pews are removed, the aisles will be have to be built up using hardwood flooring installed in a diagonal pattern to show that it’s new.

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Meanwhile, a salvage plan has been developed to find uses for the removed pews, Padolsky said.

Each pew will be labelled and stored off-site while plans to repurpose them are made. A few pews will be relocated into the basement to be used in the pub and the multipurpose room. The remaining pews will be offered to other congregations, museums or the public.

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