Province House walls coming down, Parks Canada says

The exterior walls of Province House will have to be removed and then rebuilt, Parks Canada said Thursday in an update on the $41-million renovations.

But project manager Greg Shaw said the stone walls and the other "character defining" elements of the building — the windows, the symmetry, the slate on the roof — will all be preserved.

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"That's a very important building to Prince Edward Islanders and to Canadians and we want to make sure we preserve those character defining elements," he said.

Province House was built in 1847. It belongs to the province of P.E.I. but is maintained and operated as a national historic site by Parks Canada.

A lot of "evaluation" work has been done on the building in the last year or so, "although it may not look like it from the outside," Shaw said.

The interior walls will be replaced with brick instead of sandstone, he said, which will affect the exterior.

"We can't remove the interior stones without taking the exterior stones down at the same time," he said. "The exterior walls of the building will be removed down to the bottom of the foundation and rebuilt back up."

Work on the inside is expected to begin in March, he said. The completion date is still scheduled for 2020.

The federal government has budgeted $41 million, but Shaw said that could fluctuate as the renovations progress.

In the meantime, the legislature will continue to meet in the Coles Building next door.

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