The Monarch Theatre continues it's renovations. Kevin Kyle/CHAT News

By Jesse Gill

Monarch Theatre continues facelift to get back to historic roots

Sep 11, 2024 | 6:42 PM

The Monarch Theatre is getting a facelift to get back to its historic roots.

The Monarch 1911 Society is working with a heritage conservation consultant to get the building back to what it was during the 1935 to 1941 time period.

That consultant, Jeanie Gartley of JM Gartley Design Studio Inc., said they have completed as-built drawings and used historic photographs and research to get a good understanding of what that looks like.

“It was changed kind of in a fragmented manner and that was all before it got designated,” Gartley said.

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“But now that it’s designated, it wants to be rehabilitated back to exactly what it was in the 1935 and the 1941 renovations for as a streamlined, modern, architectural style building,” she added.

“The building is very structurally sound. There’s no issues with that, which is great. It’s got lots of integrity, but things like the top parapet on the front facade was kind of crumbling, so it was kind of rebuilt, but it’s all the same features are there re-stuccoing it per standards.”

READ: Southern Albertans receive grants to protect historic buildings

Gartley was engaged by the Monarch 1911 Society because the building is a municipal heritage resource building, designated by the City of Medicine Hat in 2016.

“Given that it is a designated building, it has to go through conservation intervention approval by the city and also by the province if the society decides to access grants for the rehabilitation of it,” Gartley said.

“One things they needed was to engage a heritage conservation consult to do a conservation plan. A plan that puts together, per the Canadian standards and guidelines, how best to rehabilitate it so that nothing is destroyed or done in a way that it shouldn’t be.”

So far the Monarch has had some interior and exterior work done to it and the next project will be getting the marquee back to that 1935 era look.

Exterior stucco work and painting has been completed recently.

Brian Robinson, treasurer of the Monarch 1911 Society and also the contractor of the project, said they have got the water and electrical cleaned up so far as well as some other exterior work.

“You can see that we’ve been working on the outside. We got a grant for to redo the outside of, what you see has been rebuilt,” Robinson said.

“We’ve done really good it’s going far. We’ve been able to expose the [old] Mac’s Cigar Store windows, and it’s pretty, it’s going to plan.”

TV screens are being installed in the windows to activate the store front and revitalized it.

The society is hoping to access additional grants to be able to complete additional renovations to the interior of the building.

It hopes to bring at least one event a month to the venue while it is still under construction.