Great bones

Wellington convenience store advocates head to council

Thursday morning, defenders for a mainstay of Wellington Main Street will visit a committee of council to argue their case for preserving it.

Artist Pamela Carter, who has been advocating for maintaining the building from the start, and architect Bill Hurst, who has come up with some potential redesigns, will each give 10- minute deputations before the councillors, urging them to reconsider a preliminary plan to bulldoze the convenience store at Wellington’s busiest corner to make a parkette or parking lot.

Carter will be reminding councillors what about half of them already know: there is great will to keep the building intact. During an overflowing town hall meeting arranged by Carter and Wellington resident Mike Harper two weeks ago, there was a consensus that the only stoplight in the village should also be the location of the most commerce, not a few parking spaces.

“We want the County to know is that what we really would like to do is work with them,” says Carter. “For my part, I just want to reinforce what came out of the town hall meeting. The people who went to the meeting may have already been of a certain frame of mind, but the majority of people at the meeting were very keen on not having a parking lot or a parkette, and it seems that’s what everybody wants.”

The building, on the northwest corner of Main and Wharf streets, has been the cause of contention in the village since June, when its current owner sold it to the County so that the municipality could finally come to a solution about Lane Creek.

The creek is open behind Pomodoro on Wharf Street and farther north. It runs through culverts under the roads and buildings until it opens up again on the Drake Devonshire property. Those culverts are now crumbling, creating liability and injury concerns.

For several years, the County has been working with engineers and conservation authorities to find a way to manage the creek. Initially, the proposed solution was to tear open the intersection and reroute the creek, but when the property became available, the County took it as the simpler and less expensive option.

“We just want to make sure the County knows that we totally understand the issues, and that we know how important it is to fix the creek for all the reasons that the creek needs to be fixed, environmental reasons and liability reasons and all that. We appreciate that,” says Carter.

Although the building itself is not a heritage property, it does date back to the late 1800s. Tom Cruickshank, who penned The Settler’s Dream, said the building “needs work, but it has great bones,” in a letter to Carter. “[It] would make a splendid restoration project for the right owner. Even as is, it’s better than a hole in the streetscape. In a village that relies on tourism and its 19th century charm, a new building (or worse—a vacant lot) at the four corners of Wellington would be the kiss of death.”

With years of neglect and a crumbling culvert supported by wood, the interior floor is crumbling. It is no longer safe. The owner of the former pizza shop next door cited the sagging floor as one of the reasons she relocated.

But, says Carter, this doesn’t mean the building can’t be salvaged, even if it will come at a cost. To her, the cost of losing it is far steeper.

“I would go on a painting blitz and I would raise money like a maniac if the building was deemed to be salvageable,” says Carter.

At this point, there hasn’t been a study on whether the building itself is salvageable. “We value our streetscape, and we want to keep it.”

If the committee makes a motion to research other options, the community development foundation will hold sessions with residents and council to brainstorm the best options going forward.