January 10, 2020, ACO Chair Kae Elgie urged Owen Sound Council to not consent to the demolition of the 148-year-old, designated St. Mary’s Catholic Church rectory.

“Rehabilitating the rectory is the better choice – not just for the preservation of the community’s heritage but for the environment as well. Razing the building would contravene provincial policy, which says significant built heritage resources and cultural heritage landscapes shall be conserved and would also be very bad for the environment. Not only would we be destroying building materials superior to what we can easily obtain today, we would be burning fossil fuels to transport wasted materials to the landfill.”

“Replacing building materials imposes a huge environmental toll – fossil fuels burned, greenhouse gases emitted, air and water polluted. It takes 35 to 50 years for a new energy-efficient building to save the amount of energy lost in demolishing an existing building.”

- Denis Langlois, Owen Sound Sun Times, January 10, 2020   Owen Sound Sun Times, January 14, 2020

January 13, 2020, City council has decided not to stand in the way of a St. Mary’s Catholic Church parish plan to demolish its historic 148-year-old rectory in Owen Sound.

“We’re glad that Council could see the dollar signs – that’s really what it came down to. We cannot ask our parishioners to raise $4 million. We’re just a typical Catholic parish – we’re not swimming in money.”
- Neil Devlin, Parish Building Committee Chair

“It’s their property. It’s them that has to figure out what they can afford. And the property is not in good shape to try and maintain."
- Mayor Ian Boddy   

February 9, 2021, contractor hired to demolish.