Peek inside Colonial Building as N.L. government gives progress report on renos

After eight years of work and a lot of money, the public is getting a peek into how restoration work on Newfoundland and Labrador's former seat of government is taking shape.

The outside of the Colonial Building on Military Road in St. John's is done, but a tour of the inside on Monday showed that it will be years until the building is ready for visitors.

Reporters invited in to see progress on the renovations were told that heating, electrical, windows and roof have all been replaced.

The next steps will be to have the rooms finished. Some will be more modern functional offices, but other areas will be restored back to their original time period.

The renovations were expected to take only a few years when they started in 2009, but restoring a heritage building is not straightforward.

"The ceiling was a surprise," said Gerry Osmond, director of heritage with the tourism department.

"We didn't realize how structurally unsound the ceiling was until we got into the project and we did fix that first and foremost."

There were other twists and turns.

"We found bits and bobs of things in the building. Ballots from an1880 election unopened were just lying in the attic, ballots from a referendum on prohibition, which were just lying around, champagne bottles in the walls, just quirky things that people left in the building," Osmond said.

"The building oozes history. This is where the debates took place, this is where the decisions were made, so for me there's so much here that I think people would love to come and see and learn about.

So far, one room has been fully restored, using a paint colour found under layers of newer paint and faux wood moldings common when the building was constructed in the mid-1800s.

The experience of doing one room will give government an idea of the timeand cost involved when it puts that part of the work out to tender.

The total project is expected to cost $22.5 million.

Future use not yet decided

In its previous life, the Colonial Building housed the Newfoundland House of Assembly for more than 100 years.

How the building will be used in the future is still being decided.

"We want this space to be as open and available to the public," said Christopher Mitchelmore, the minister in charge of tourism, culture, industry and innovation.

He's looking for suggestions for how to eventually use the space, but wouldn't commit to a proposal by one city resident to use part of the Colonial Building for a downtown library.

"There are limitations to the building, given the size of some of the rooms and ability. So if you were to look at trying to create a public library like the downtown Halifax public library or others they're purpose built."

Mitchelmoresaid there may be the option to have several rooms open to the public with internet access and more specialized book collections.

Government has no timeline for when interior renovations will be finished but will be years away.