{"id":21881,"date":"2018-10-12T14:17:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T18:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21881"},"modified":"2018-10-12T14:17:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T18:17:08","slug":"our-lady-of-grace-makeover-now-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/our-lady-of-grace-makeover-now-underway\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lady of Grace makeover now underway"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

A plan to give Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church a significant makeover and give the place of worship a landmark new steeple and expansion is now underway after Council approval this past spring.
\nThe renovation and expansion of Our Lady of Grace, which sits on Yonge Street between Catherine Avenue and Maple Street, will include a new largely glass fa\u00e7ade featuring views of Yonge, a reconfigured parking lot, the demolition of Lynett Hall, and the restoration of the Catherine Avenue home to which the church hall is currently attached.
\nThe proposals went through Aurora\u2019s Heritage Advisory Committee earlier this year and came out with several recommendations from members, including a new entrance on Yonge and landscaping adjustments to act as a traffic buffer to Maple, and these revised plans have been approved by Council.
\n\u201cWe received comments from the public with respect to enhancing the landscaping along the [Maple] edge and the landscaping plans do reflect additional landscaping along the entire edge of the property,\u201d Marco Ramunno, Aurora\u2019s Director of Planning, told Council at the Committee level ahead of their ultimate approval. \u201cWe will ensure that gets incorporated into the development.
\n\u201cThe two key comments that came from the public at HAC was the landscaping. The other comment was incorporating a front door along that west elevation and the applicant has incorporated that. I think that is reflected in the colour rendering that has been provided to Council. There are three glass panels along that addition and the centre panel includes a door entrance.\u201d
\nFor Councillors Jeff Thom and Wendy Gaertner, this Yonge Street access was key. Historically seen as Aurora\u2019s \u201cmain street\u201d, Yonge Street is currently Our Lady of Grace\u2019s formal frontage with stairs sweeping down to the sidewalk below. This has leant itself to becoming a landmark, they say, and something which should be maintained.
\n\u201cThis is a very interesting situation because this is one of our landmarks,\u201d said Councillor Gaertner. \u201cIt is on Yonge Street, it has an address on Yonge Street, its main part, the bulk of the structure, and perhaps the most recognizable part of the structure faces onto Yonge Street. As Councillor Thom said, it used to be a large, very attractive, welcoming entrance and not only is this on one of our main streets, it is also part of the Promenade Plan. With respect to the door\u2026you have a double wooden door that goes into another part of the building. With the main entrance, the most important entrance, it is a single door flanked by two windows. I think at the very least it needs to be a double door.
\n\u201cWhen it came to HAC, we were thrilled. We want this church to be as functioning and as wonderful as it can possibly be. We talked about screening and additional parking and all the elements that are going to make this a wonderful restoration. My point and the committee\u2019s point about the front door is the front doors draw the community into the field of this church, into the importance of it to the community.
\n\u201cIt is not a criticism, it is an ask to continue to make Our Lady of Grace, which has been a very important part of our community for a very long time, continue that view on Yonge Street, that welcoming entrance. Perhaps it won\u2019t be used as much as it is now, but it adds to the look and the feel of our heritage, not only of the Town but also our historical Yonge Street and promenade area. We want to make things better, not difficult and we think that a beautiful door at the former entrance to the building would add to the streetscape and to the look of the church.\u201d
\nAdditional concerns were noted by Councillor John Abel on behalf of Aurora\u2019s Accessibility Advisory Committee which, he said, determined the entrance ramp was \u201cin the wrong place and excessively long.
\n\u201cWe made recommendations that emergency escape routes should have consideration for how people were going to \u2013 because they only have one way to get in and out on a ramp,\u201d he said.
\nCouncil, as a whole, was largely positive over the designs, with Councillor Tom Mrakas saying it would be a benefit to the Town as a whole.
\n\u201cThis has been a lot of work by the church and congregation putting this together and bringing this forward in an application I think not only suits their needs, but I think also continues to make this a focal point for our downtown core,\u201d said Councillor Mrakas. \u201cI appreciate all the work they have done in bringing this forward and I am looking forward to seeing this completed and showing it off to the whole Town.\u201d
\nAdded Councillor Sandra Humfryes: \u201cI think overall this is a fantastic plan. I am thrilled the church is going to have an opportunity to expand. It\u2019s needed very urgently and I am thrilled with it, I love the entrance. I understand Councillor Gaertner\u2019s comments about the double door. I think the lovely glass, to me, makes it very obvious it is an entrance. I think it is lovely and I can\u2019t wait to see it come to fruition.\u201d
\nNow being taken in phases, the revamp is expected to be complete in November 2019.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A plan to give Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church a significant makeover and give the place of worship a landmark new steeple and expansion is now underway after Council approval this past spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5GV","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 08:14:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/2018-10-11-05.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}