The Thorold Historical Museum and Cultural Centre is becoming a reality. Today, the federal government announced an investment of over $6M into the project.
As ThoroldToday reported, the City is set to retire Fire Station 1 this year, and the Thorold Museum Board is looking to convert the building into their permanent home.
Niagara Centre MP Vance Badawey, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, was on hand Friday morning to make the announcement in front of Fire Station 1 on Towpath St.
“The Thorold Museum, as well as the Cultural Centre, will provide a wonderful new space for your community to come together,” he told the gathered crowd. “Additionally, the facility will help catalyze interest in Thorold’s downtown, contributing to a more vibrant district.”
The federal government is investing $6,272,000 in this project through the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings (GICB) program and the City of Thorold is contributing $1,568,000.
The funding will go towards upgrading the building, such as accessibility improvements, including a new elevator. There will also be major updates to the exterior of the building, to improve insulation, prevent leaks, and enhance energy efficiency.
Finally, the building will receive a new, state-of-the-art HVAC system that will not only support heating and cooling, but will also control humidity levels in the building to ensure ideal preservation of the historic artifacts that will be on display.
“Projects like this one do not happen without financial assistance from upper government,” said Mayor Terry Ugulini. “City Council committed to this project, subject to us being successful in a federal funding request. We are thankful and we will deliver a facility that everyone can be proud of, one that will serve our community for years to come.”
The funding announcement is a testament to the hard work of the Thorold Museum Board, led by President Mal Woodhouse.
“This is pretty exciting,” Woodhouse tells ThoroldToday. “There’s a lot work that has been done to get us to this point. It’s basically been a 20-year project and finally we’re here and we got the funding for it. ”
The museum is being envisioned as a place that will host educational and cultural events.
“It’s going to be a people meeting people place,” Woodhouse explains. “It can’t be a museum that just has displays of things. It has to have a story attached and you want to have people interacting and being part of it. We want it to be a real active museum.”
Woodhouse says that MP Badawey has been instrumental in relating Thorold’s story to the government in Ottawa and that is partly why the funding has come through.
With the funding now secured, it is the museum board’s intent to have the project completed within the next year-and-a-half.
“Because it’s a renovation, it’s not going to be a total new build,” Woodhouse says. “It’s going to be a green building so that’s going to require solar panels and a total transformation of the operations and electrical grid. I’m pretty confident we can get it done in maximum a year-and-a-half.”
The museum board will now enlist an architectural firm to draw up the plans, while the fire department is hoping to move their operations over into the new firehall on McCleary Drive come June.
Woodhouse can’t wait for the museum to become a reality.
“This is a real community place,” he says. “It’ll be an exciting time for everybody.”
