The Heritage Canada Foundation, in its 2004 Report, ranked the disappearance of the 1855 vintage Hotel Shediac as the second worst heritage loss in Canada. What an honour!

Fortunately, all is not lost. Shediac has managed to hold on to some of its heritage by restoring the Pascal Poirier House and restoration of the old Chez Francoise building will soon be complete. There is still L’Auberge Gabriele, Auberge Belcourt Inn, Maison Vienneau and the Webster House to remind us of the town’s architectural heritage.

Over the past 30 years, according to the Heritage Foundation, Canada lost 23% of its early buildings in urban areas and 21% of building stock in rural areas. This rate of destruction is disturbing, particularly when too often we see them replaced with ugly, no character glass and steel monstrosities.

The people of Shediac have a chance to do better. On May 9th, Public Works and Government Services Canada issued an invitation to private sector developers to provide information in respect to the possibility they will lease nearly 40,000 square feet of office and storage space in the Town of Shediac. The space would be used by the Superannuation, Pension, Transition and Client Services Division of Public Works for the next 15 or twenty years.

This will bring new jobs to Shediac and new revenue to the Town in the form of property tax and retail purchases. One of the locations mentioned for this development is the site of the late and departed Hotel Shediac. At least one developer has expressed an interest in acquiring the site for the project but Shediac Town Council has said no way because it promised opponents of the hotel demolition that the once stately edifice would be replaced with “a multi-use community building and cultural centre”.

In my opinion, the former hotel site is ideally located for the Superannuation expansion. It’s just across the street from the existing complex and it has the spatial characteristics to meet the criteria laid out by Public Works but that’s not enough to justify turning over the property to land speculators or developers.

The other day, I came across a brochure that was distributed in support of the ‘save the hotel’ campaign. It depicts how the Hotel might have looked if restored to its original appearance. The illustration got me thinking.

The people who wanted to preserve the Hotel (and I was one of them) were concerned with preserving a dilapidated old building that marked a piece of their heritage. They were also concerned with preserving what had become a visual icon and the natural heart of downtown Shediac. Even in its run down state, it was still a landmark.

Most of the people who wanted to save the hotel probably hadn’t been in the building for years. They weren’t users. They didn’t send their friends to stay there. They didn’t eat there. They were just wallowing in nostalgia, remembering the time when our first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, stayed for the night on his way back to Ontario from the 1867 Confederation Conference in Charlottetown.

Or maybe it was the memory of passengers waiting at the hotel for the ferry to Prince Edward Island or the summer celebrities like comedian Bob Hope and movie legend Greta Garbo who visited the hotel.

Regardless of their reasons for wanting to save the hotel, most people would admit it was the idea of losing something of historical significance to their town that bothered them most about the demolition. Today, the site displays as an empty lot, a lot without a purpose. Council lives with its promise to replace the hotel with a community centre but it’s not likely to have the money to build anything significant for the next decade or two. Besides, a community centre is no replacement for a historic hotel. The property has memories. It needs life and activity to make it thrive.

I think the Town should offer the property for lease but attach to the lease agreement an irrevocable and easily enforceable covenant that would require a developer to replicate the façade of the original hotel (even if it needs to be oversized) as the face of an office building that could be built to house the Superannuation folks?

The covenant could also require the developer to imitate the hotel’s ground floor with a check-in counter that could serve as a tourist information booth, a formal dining room, a grand staircase and a community heritage centre. Parking could be in behind the building and loading facilities could be accessed from the BMO laneway. To make it perfect, the developer could be extended to refurbish the old Shediac Train Station as a heritage restaurant for staffers in the daytime and tourists in the evening.

The new building would be a proud landmark. It would celebrate the heritage of Hotel Shediac and showcase the compatibility of heritage and the modern day office environment. It would attract admiring visitors and make tenants of the building and their employees proud.

The Hotel is gone. It’s not coming back. Shediac Council should jump on the chance to replace it with something that will bring new life to the town while honouring its heritage. This is not about breaking promises or responding to the interests of a real estate developer.

This is about taking advantage of a commercial real estate opportunity to make the town a better place.

Don’t blow it folks!