First look at new interior vision for Saint John's old Sydney Street courthouse

Stepping through the arched wooden doorway into the white marble halls of the old Sydney Street courthouse, it's hard to believe the Saint John building's future was in jeopardy less than a decade ago.

Built in the 1820s, the imposing stone building, originally designed by local architect John Cunningham, has a hat-trick of national, provincial, and municipal heritage designations.

One of the very first public buildings erected in Saint John, according to design architect Melissa Wakefield, it survived both the Great Fire of 1877 and another fire in 1919.

It housed infamous criminal proceedings from the 1869 trial of Black River Road murderer John Munroe to that of serial killer Noel Winters in the mid-eighties.

The building was no longer needed after construction of the new law courts at Peel Plaza in 2013. It looked doubtful that the building would find a buyer.

The city had the chance to take over ownership of the building, but rejected that in a vote at council in 2016.

Ambitious plan

Now — after sitting empty since 2013 — it's undergoing what could be its most ambitious revision in almost 200 years.

The Saint John Theatre Company officially took possession of the old courthouse in March 2020, announcing its intention to transform it into a modern performance space. Design illustrations for the outside of the building were unveiled in January of last year.

"Of course on March the 13th of 2020, we shut down due to COVID," said Saint John Theatre Company director Stephen Tobias. "It's been a really interesting process, keeping this project alive, moving forward, and active during the two-and-a-half years we've been dealing with COVID disruptions."

The vision for the interior of the building is being made public for the first time this week.

The new designs by EXP Architects show a 220+ seat theatre, box office, café, and other performance and rehearsal spaces of various sizes.

The scope of work requires a significant expansion to the footprint of the building from 10,000 square feet of usable space to approximately 25,000 square feet.

The main entrance will be moved from Sydney Street to the modern addition off King Street East — the facade of which will light up like a marquee at night, allowing the shadows of patrons to be visible, shadow-box style, from the street.

"Everything that you see on the King Street East Side takes a deliberately modern approach [which] I think speaks to the building's future use as a theatre, and lets the courthouse that faces King's Square be the courthouse," Wakefield said.

'Future-proofing' the design

The past few years have been "an opportunity to really heighten the design concepts," according to Tobias.

"We changed the designs a lot as a result of COVID. We realized that we would have to future-proof the building for the next health-related disruption that may come along" he said.

The as-yet-unnamed space will contain ample room to house the Atlantic Repertory Company, which provides paid experience and opportunities to emerging young theatre artists with ties to Atlantic Canada — as well as production and performance space for rental clients like Imperial Theatre, Symphony New Brunswick, Theatre New Brunswick, Atlantic Ballet, Connection Danceworks, the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra, and others.

The Saint John Theatre Company has won multiple Heritage Development Board awards for its rehabilitation of the BMO Theatre at 112 Princess Street, a once-dilapidated heritage building in which the company invested close to $2 million.

Steps forward

The courthouse has two notable stone staircases: one spiral staircase, and a unique circular staircase that featured prominently in tourist brochures before the building closed in 2013.

The circular staircase — which unlike a spiral staircase, has no central supportive column — is "one of only a handful of freestanding, self-supporting staircases in Canada," Wakefield said. "Its engineering and construction is a bit of a mystery."

Legend has it "when these stairs were first built, the judge didn't trust them," Tobias said.

"He had them bring all the prisoners from the jail across the way, and had them all stand on the stairs and jump up and down for a while — just to make sure that they were safe. And then he felt comfortable using the stairs. I don't know if it's true, but I love the story," Tobias said.

The staircase will be open to the public when the building is complete, he said.

Construction expected to start in spring

According to the latest estimates, the courthouse project will cost in the range of $17.9 million.

"The hope is that we start construction in the spring," Tobias said — although, given supply chain disruptions and labour shortages — that timeline is subject to change.

"If we start construction in the spring, we're looking at a two-year timeline to opening."

Wakefield, who received a Saint John 2021 Heritage Award for the courthouse design, looks forward to what the completion of the project will bring to Saint Johners.

"I hope they feel inspired. I hope they are excited to see what's possible — and I really hope that it sets a new precedent for merging modern architectural design with heritage," she said.