Protecting Immigration Hall
by Lawrence Herzog
Inside Edmonton | Vol. 27 No. 26 | July 02, 2009
Immigration Hall file photo.
Opened in 1931 as a place of welcome for newcomers, Edmonton’s Immigration Hall has long languished as a forsaken and increasingly imperilled chunk of Edmonton’s fascinating past. Now, the dilapidated and forlorn building at 10534 100th Street is being declared a Municipal Historic Resource, and is eligible for government dollars to help with its rejuvenation.
It’s fantastic news for a building that has faced an uncertain future for a long time. Since the 1990s, several organizations have attempted to buy and resurrect the old hall, with its classically proportioned symmetrical facade and flat roof, but the parts never fell into place.
A couple of years ago, the Edmonton Housing Trust Fund got involved, and now Hope Mission is going to turn the building into transitional housing. It will help rescue men and women from life on the streets, and will provide much-needed support services for addictions, mental health and unemployment issues.
Once again, it will be a place to help those in need.
The two-storey plus basement building is in remarkably good shape, especially considering its age and recent neglect, says architect Allan Partridge, principal with HIP Architects. “It was built by the federal government, and they built it right. The main structure is pretty well intact; there are some rotted joists, but very few.”
The design and construction team is upgrading the foundation system to meet seismic requirements, but Partridge says the centre-cut Douglas fir joists “are like iron, and so were able use a lot of the existing structure. We just inserted new structure where it was necessary.”
In all, the budget for bringing the building back to life is $6.2 million. Of that, nearly $1.2 million is allocated for restoring historic elements including windows and doors, the roof structure, foundation and interior lobby and staircase.
“We’re going to restore the outside and the entire lobby and stairwell to what it was in the 1930s,” Partridge says. “Plans call for a photo montage in the lobby that show some of the families and individuals who came through in the building’s heyday.”
The Immigration Hall is a building with a lot to say about the development and growth of Edmonton. The city's first immigration building, a small little place, was constructed in the 1890s, right in the heart of the city on First Street.
It provided services and accommodation for newcomers – and there were lots of them. Between 1900 and 1914, Edmonton's population exploded, increasing from 2,626 to more than 70,000. These newcomers joined Edmonton's already diverse cultural mosaic, built over the previous century.
No wonder that the original building just couldn't handle the load. Early in the 20th century, a wood framed replacement was built near the Canadian Northern (later Canadian National) railway station. It was soon bursting at the seams.
In 1930, the City of Edmonton issued a building permit to the Dominion Government, Department of Public Works for a new Immigration Hall, near the old one. The new hall, a brick and reinforced concrete structure, trimmed with Tyndall limestone, measured 37 feet by 128 feet.
It was designed by architect Thomas William Fuller of the Federal Department of Public Works in Ottawa and constructed by local contractor John Dunlop one block east of the original Immigration Hall. The cost for design and construction was $80,000.
Immigration Hall is a very good example of the conservative architectural expression of the federal government during this time period,” says a report to city council recommending designation. “Traditional architectural styles remained popular during the interwar period and this design demonstrates the late persistence of the Classical Revival style that had been introduced at the turn of the nineteenth century.”
The classically proportioned and ordered symmetrical facade featured a segmental arched second-storey window above the central entrance, square-headed windows on the upper floors, slightly set into the facade. The centrepiece of the utilitarian interior is a main lobby and split staircase, which featured more expensive materials including marble and terrazzo.
"Only the now defunct Winnipeg Immigration Hall of 1906-1907 was built on a larger scale and of comparable solid construction," says a report prepared in 2003 for the city's heritage planning department.
The Edmonton Immigration Hall is an "austere example of the largely denatured classicism characteristic of many federal building designs in the period," the report says. "Planned, styled and constructed for a limited specialized purpose in an isolated city location, this building exhibits few of the characteristics of more prestigiously oriented federal public building types."
It's also an exceptionally rare building, as just three Immigration Halls constructed after World War I are known to be still standing. The other ones are in Prince Albert and North Battleford, Saskatchewan.
“It is this rarity as a building type that makes Immigration Hall so historically significant and worthy of designation as a Municipal Historic Resource,” says Robert Geldart, the city's principal heritage planner. “It was designed and built for processing and helping new immigrants arriving in Edmonton, and it closely tells the story of how Edmonton as a growing city was attracting new immigrants to settle here and build new lives."
In 1947, discovery of oil near Leduc triggered another wave of immigration to Alberta, and overcrowding was again an issue at Immigration Hall. A three-storey addition valued at $108,000 was constructed in 1954 to the west of the original structure. The new wing featured concrete foundation, steel frame and similar brick facing. It was built by Edmonton's Poole Construction.
The 1954 addition appears to have been upgraded and reconfigured sometime in the early 1960s, the report says. Eventually the 1930 portion of the structure became vacant. In the early 1990s, the 1954 addition was leased to the Alberta Department of Social Services for use as a women's emergency shelter.
The shelter closed in the early 1990s and the building has remained vacant since. It became so dilapidated that the city issued a demolition order in 2004, but some repairs staved off the execution.
The 7,500 square foot Immigration Hall’s rebirth as 43 transitional housing units is to be complete by next spring. The centre will include a green roof and patio, a safe gathering place for the residents, and glassed-in fire escapes on both ends.
“We’re looking at incorporating the story of the building on the glass as public art,” Partridge says. “It’s a building with a story that deserves to be told.”
Congratulations to all those who persisted and worked for so very long to save Edmonton’s Immigration Hall.
©Copyright 2000-2007, All Rights Reserved. All articles, text and photographic material presented here is copyright. Unauthorized copying or re-distribution is strictly prohibited.
http://www.rewedmonton.ca/content_view_rew?CONTENT_ID=2563
Prev
Linear Mode
