The Saint John Theatre Company’s Courthouse has been honoured with a 2021 Saint John Heritage Award, marking an exciting step forward in the cultural facility’s construction journey.
“We’ve got great architects, consultants, and a building committee that have been really working hard for about two years on these designs,” says Stephen Tobias, the executive director of the Saint John Theatre Company. “This has been an arduous process because of the unique nature of the building and the unique nature of the project–it’s been quite a team effort.”
He says the project is still some distance away from officially launching but shared that the design process is essentially complete and they have applied for building permits from the City of Saint John, which will be an extensive process.
“We hope we’d be in a position to start construction sometime the middle of this year but there are still a whole lot of things that would have to fall into place before that could happen,” he explains.
The Heritage Award highlights and acknowledges the team that will make the Courthouse a physical reality, including Brian Goodwin, the head of the construction committee. It also includes:
- EXP – Architects and Engineers;
- CBCL – Project Control Specialists;
- AGCM – Construction Management;
- R J Bartlett Engineering Ltd. – Fire Protection Services;
- Theatre Consultants Collaborative (TCC) – Performance Space Planning;
- Jaffe Holden – Acoustic Design Specialists;
- John G. Cooke and Associates Ltd – Heritage Restoration Specialists;
- Pinchin Ltd. – Environmental Consulting;
- Heritage Standing Inc. – Historic Structural Conservation.
“There is a team of us that first walked into that empty building roughly six years ago and it’s taken us six years to get to this point,” said Tobias. “We’re on the verge of being shovel-ready at this point, so we’re very anxious to move on to the next phase.”
This story originally appeared in Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
