The academy was founded by the Sisters of Loretto in 1861, under the guidance of the first Superior of Loretto Academy, Mother Joachim Murray. They took up residence at Canada House, a former inn which had fallen into disrepair. The frame building was renovated and rehabilitated by the Sisters, and it served as their residence and school until 1869, when they transformed the country inn into a stone convent and school for girls.
The yearly tuition at Loretto was $80-$100, a significant amount in those days.
The main Loretto Academy building was constructed in two stages. The North Wing, with the lower roofline, was built in 1869. Ten years later the rest of the structure was erected.
On January 19, 1938, a disastrous fire destroyed the interior of the South Wing. Fortunately, none of the sisters or boarders were injured, and the stone walls of the building remained intact. Reconstruction was quickly begun, and the building was again in use the following September.
The Loretto Academy celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1961. In 1970, the boarding school was closed and Loretto became the Catholic High School of Niagara Falls, until 1982 when St. Paul High School was converted from a senior school.
The building operated as The Loretto Convent and Christian Life Centre as a site for religious retreats for many students within the Catholic (Separate) Board. In May of 2005, Sister Carmen Diston, provincial leader of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the impending closure of the retreat, citing expensive upgrades that would have been necessary to bring the centre up to modern standards. It closed permanently in September 2005 and was put up for sale.
Niagara Falls municipal politicians narrowly decided not to declare the Loretto centre a historically significant property in October 2005. The property owner, the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, voiced opposition to historical designation, fearing that it would have drastically lowered the site's potential sale price due to development restrictions on the existing building.
Romzap Ltd., owners of the Sheraton Fallsview Hotel and Conference Centre, announced their purchase of the 7.4 acre Loretto property in January 2006. No plans for the site were released at the time of the purchase, but in May of 2010, a proposal for a 57-story hotel overlooking the Horseshoe Falls was announced. Romzap stated that the land would be ideally suited for the hotel as well as two other high-rises that could be opened as either hotels or condominiums. If completed, the proposed hotel structure would be the city's tallest building. Local grassroots organization Friends of Niagara Falls opposed the plan, citing a range of environmental, aesthetic, and heritage reasons against the project.
The development was subject to zoning applications and community consulting between 2010 and 2018. In August of 2018, the Chinese-Canadian company 3Bridges Properties purchased the Lorettto site from Romzap Ltd. Development plans call for an estimated billion-dollar three-tower hotel and residence complex which includes a 32-storey south tower, a 57-storey central tower, and 42-storey north tower including a luxury hotel, condominium residences, and an amenities complex. According to 3Bridges Properties CEO Dan Zhang, the main intended target audience for the development is tourists and property buyers from Asia.
The property development design was billed as a historically sympathetic restoration, retaining, conserving, and incorporating several existing architectural elements from the Loretto Academy building, including its mansard roof and cupola. However, recent architectural renderings and computer simulations of the proposed development show the Loretto Academy property being dwarfed by the massive surrounding towers.
3Bridges Properties. 2021. Projects. https://3bridgesproperties.com/projects/
3Bridges Properties. 2021. The Great Falls. https://3bridgesproperties.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/English-The-Great-Falls.pdf
Freaktography, 2016. Exploring The Loretto Academy in Niagara Falls | The Loretto Convent, Retrieved from: https://freaktography.com/exploring-the-loretto-academy-in-niagara-falls-loretto-convent-loretto-fallsview/
McLean, Steve. 2019. 3Bridges plans hotel, condos in $1B Niagara Falls development. RENX (Real Estate News Exchange), July 10, 2019. https://renx.ca/3bridges-hotel-condo-development-niagara-falls/
Niagara Falls Public Library. 2017. Niagara Falls - Then & Now: A Photographic Journey Through The Years. [Loretto Academy / Canada House Hotel / Loretto Fallsview].
Scheer, Mark. 2010. Romzap, Ltd Seeks to Build 57-story Hotel Overlooking Horseshoe Falls in Canada; Opponents Claim Building So Near the Falls Will have Profound Implications for the Natural Environment. Niagara Gazette, Niagara Falls, N.Y. / McClatchy-Tribune Regional News. https://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2010_2nd/May10...
Spiteri, Ray. 2019. Hotel development at Loretto to include restoring historic Niagara Falls building. The Niagara Falls Review / St. Catharines Standard, June 2, 2019. https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news/niagara-region/2019/06/02/hotel-development-at-loretto-to-include-restoring-historic-niagara-falls-building.html
Niagara Falls Then and Now
A collaborative project
Niagara Falls Museums - Niagara Falls Public Library - Dept. of Geography and Tourism Studies,Brock University.
Original newspaper series by
Sherman Zavitz, Official Historian for the City of Niagara Falls from 1994 - 2019.
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