Donatelli excited to take on Rodman Hall
Developer has love of historical buildings
Nino Donatelli has a passion for buying and restoring old buildings in St. Catharines, from major brownfields to minor facelifts.
But Rodman Hall is something special all on its own.
“I love old buildings. To have one of the most gorgeous, iconic buildings in St. Catharines and to somehow be responsible for its look and controlling it ... I thought The Keg and the Stone Mill were nice buildings, but this is absolutely iconic,” Donatelli said.
“The more I read, the more I fall in love with the building and the history.”
The new owner of the 19thcentury building on St. Paul Crescent said he hopes to convince arts groups to use it and then he hopes to construct some low-rise residential housing on the outskirts of the property, which overlooks Twelve Mile Creek.
Donatelli is responsible for massive restorations in the Merritton area in the past 20 years, fixing up a dilapidated rubber plant and turning it into The Keg on Glendale Avenue and the 19th-century Lybster Mill across the street into Stone Mill Inn.
A smaller project involved some minor improvements to Merritton Town Hall on Merritt Street in 2016 and in the ’80s he fixed up the Port Mansion in Port Dalhousie’s commercial core.
Donatelli said he was excited when he was told he won the bid for Rodman Hall which Brock University has owned for 17 years.
“They didn’t want someone from out of town to come in and bastardize or destroy that property. They know what I’ve done in the area,” he said.
“We’re trying to do the right thing and make it right and have the right participants involved without overdeveloping the site.”
Rodman Hall was built between 1857 and 1863 and remained in the prominent St. Catharines Merritt family until about 1960.
It was sold to an arts council which ran a gallery that fell into financial problems in the 1990s. Brock stepped forward to acquire the building and save the art collection in 2003.
The school began consultation meetings in fall 2016 about the future of the property which had escalating costs and no use anymore for the university.
Earlier this month, Brock announced the property had been acquired by Donatelli.
The school is transferring the 1,000-piece art collection to the not-for-profit citizen’s group Rodman Hall Art Centre Inc. Brock also agreed to provide seed funding to the group to help it establish a new community location to house the collection.
Donatelli would ideally like to see the arts group in the building and said it’s already set up for that purpose with temperature and moisture controls and a vault.
He said he’s working with two art groups to possibly buy or lease the premises.
If that doesn’t work, he said he’ll figure out what else could go inside.
He said it can’t be a mutli-use facility because that would require spaces to be split up with fire separations and that would damage the beauty of the ceiling, walls and doors.
With the right occupant, he said it could be re-done inside to its original state using photographs that the Merritt family kept.
The mansion does need some work, he said. There’s damage in the moulding and floors and the doors have been compromised.
“The building itself is quite a challenge. It needs quite a bit of work but I’ve done all that before,” he said. “It doesn’t scare me.”
The mansion sits on 2.8 hectares of land. Donatelli said plans are very preliminary, but would include some low-rise housing along the outskirts that doesn’t block the mansion.
“Something that would suit the area and not be obtrusive or take away from the gorgeous building that is there.”
Karena Walter is a St. Catharinesbased reporter, primarily covering city hall for the Standard. Reach her via email: karena.walter @niagaradailies.com