A South Windsor private school’s plan to build an NHL-sized ice rink on heritage property has received support from a committee of city council.
The development and heritage standing committee on Monday backed Académie Ste-Cécile International School’s request for a heritage permit to erect an arena and a separate structure for dressing rooms behind its building on Cousineau Road, the historic 1957 Holy Redeemer College.
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The school has several hockey teams at various competitive levels. Currently, those students bus to different arenas across the region for practice, John Bortolotti, the project’s architect, told the committee.
“They’re driving sometimes to Tecumseh and all over,” said Bortolotti. “With six teams and their buses, it’s a lot of cost going out the door to maintain, and hours away from the school. It’s still a school.”
The arena would not be available for public use, he said.
City council as a whole will decide whether to grant the school its heritage permit request at a future public meeting.
The proposed ice rink would measure 60.96 by 25.9 metres (200 by 85 feet) and sit inside a prefabricated arena shell with corrugated metal panels on the exterior. Although city heritage staff suggested the arena could be surrounded by one storey of brick masonry to complement the heritage building, Bortolotti said that would be cost-prohibitive. The heritage committee agreed to a compromise, which will likely see a three-foot brick “skirt” wall built instead.
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“The metal siding (coming) down, it shows that it’s a different building,” Bortolotti said. “It is what it is. It’s an arena. Even if we did it as a massive brick structure, I think you’re trying to fool somebody to say that this is historically equal. It’s not.”
Committee member William Tape argued there should be a “clear deliniation” between new and old constructions and spoke in favour of metal cladding to the ground rather than a brick wall. Otherwise, he said, “we’re being dishonest in design.”
The proposed arena addition is mostly connected to a gymnasium built in 2010, “a non-heritage element,” the staff report said. A separate two-storey brick-clad structure will house four dressing rooms on the first floor and an exercise room on the second.
The Holy Redeemer College building at 925 Cousineau Rd was constructed as a teaching seminary affiliated with Assumption University, later the University of Windsor, a staff report said. It was purchased by Académie Ste-Cécile International School in 1995.
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The structure, with its “sprawling pinwheel design” of six connected buildings anchored on a central tower, is Windsor’s only example of architect Francis Barry Byrne’s work. He began his career with Frank Lloyd Wright.
“Using Wright’s teachings as the basis for developing a personal style, Byrne set new precedents in modern ecclesiastical architecture,” the report said. “Holy Redeemer College, in the mid-century modern style, is considered one of Byrne’s greatest works and is his largest built work.”
Since the school purchased the property roughly 30 years ago, it has undertaken several additions and alterations, including a separate elementary school building to the west, a northeast wing, a gymnasium addition, a dramatic arts wing, an elementary school addition, and three two-storey dormitories, the staff report said.
In 2023, the school launched an international prep hockey program, which competes against other high-calibre prep schools.
tcampbell@postmedia.com
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