The woman who once owned and tried to save a landmark heritage property in Harbour Grace takes exception to suggestions that Ridley Offices was beyond saving and questions the government’s role in preserving important properties.
Rhonda Parsons acknowledges that restoration of the property would have been expensive, as is usually the case with heritage structures, but she wants to know how a registered heritage structure can go from “restorable” to demolition in just a few years without any meaningful attempts to save it.
In a statement provided to VOCM News, she says it is “difficult to understand” how a designated structure that was “technically restorable ultimately reached a point where demolition became accepted.”
Ridley Office (right foreground) on the Harbour Grace waterfront, circa 1910 (Heritage Foundation of NL)
She says there are legitimate public-interest questions about preservation policy in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Parsons believes the broader issue of government support deserves “serious public discussion.” She asks if restoration costs for significant heritage structures are “truly beyond the reach of ordinary owners, then what systems….exist to prevent the loss of irreplaceable historic buildings?”
