The former St. Peter’s catholic school, located on Clarence St. is being demolished.
The school was built in 1959 and since 2000 has been used as a community centre and offices for the church.
Demolition has been planned for a few years, but it took time to get started. Matthew Clarke, the Director of Communications for the Diocese of London says, “People might have been saying, why is it taking so long, but we started this process in 2022 and so we had to vacate the building and then go through the
Cornerstone from St. Peter’s Catholic School (Credit: Matthew Clarke)
demolition application process, but it’s all come to fruition now.”
The reason for the demolition is said to be financial reasons, as it’s too expensive to keep up for what it’s used for.
Before the demolition started, anything of value was removed from the property. Four cornerstones were removed from the property and preserved per request from the City of London. They also removed furniture, office equipment and records that belonged to different parishes.
With the demolition of the building, there is nothing currently planned to be built on the property.
Clarke says, “We could develop them, they could be sold, there could be long-term leased… But for now, we’re going to bring the building down to ground level and then we’ll take it from there.”
Construction started on Tuesday, and is expected to take four to six weeks to complete.
