"We are not completely married to rotating the building," Chris Mark, the Town of Oakville's director of Parks and Open Space, told council in May, as Oakville News reported. He was talking about the big two-storey wooden shed on the north side of Bronte's inner harbour. It is the building most people still call Metro Marine.
One part of the shed's future is already settled. A boat repair business has worked out of the building for several decades, and the Town has formally told it the lease ends in December 2026. According to the Town staff report on the Bronte Waterfront Strategy, the operator will move out. That leaves the shed the rest of 2026 as a working boat shop, doing work close to what it was built for. The building is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act. The boat repair use ends when the lease does.
What the shed was built to do
Most of the inner harbour's past now shows up only in plaques and street names. Bronte Harbour started as a commercial port. The Bronte Harbour Company was set up in 1846 and finished the harbour in 1856. Stonehookers came next, and at the late-1800s peak more than 40 schooners worked out of here. Fishing shanties lined the east side of Bronte Creek, and for decades fishing supported both local fishermen and local shipbuilders.
Shipbuilding goes back to the 1850s. The Town's conservation plan for the Bronte Harbour and Bluffs Cultural Heritage Landscape records that Melancthon Simpson built at least four schooners around the harbour between 1852 and 1854. The shed came about a century later. Around 1945, John A. McCleary's Northern Shipbuilding and Repair Company put it up and used it at first to build and repair boats for the war effort, possibly for the Coast Guard. Between 1945 and 1954, 29 boats were built inside it. Most were all-welded steel tug-style vessels used for logging, fishing and tanking.
In 1955 Harry Greb bought the building and started Metro Marine, which served the recreational boaters who were taking over the harbour as fishing and shipbuilding faded in the 1950s. The building went from building steel workboats to fixing pleasure craft, and it has done some version of boat work ever since.
Town documents give two dates for its construction. A 2018 heritage evaluation calls it "c.1943." The 2022 conservation plan says "around 1945." Either way, it was built for wartime work.
A building with four names
The shed's names follow its uses, and each one shows up in a different Town record.
- Bronte Marine Building, the name used for McCleary's original shipbuilding shed
- Metro Marine, from Harry Greb's 1955 business and still the name in council reports and news coverage
- Bronte Marina Building, formerly Metro Marine, the name in the heritage designation by-law passed on December 8, 2014, at 2508 Lakeshore Road West
- Oakville Harbours Building, which the 2022 conservation plan gives as its present-day name
The 2014 by-law designated the building individually under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act. In 2022 the Town also designated the wider Bronte Harbour and Bluffs Cultural Heritage Landscape, which covers the Inner Harbour, the Bronte Bluffs and Berta Point. The conservation plan calls the shed "a rare, remaining example of mid-20th century shipbuilding shed." It notes that few industrial buildings from the shipbuilding era survive in Oakville or Bronte.
Why the building has to move
The lease is ending because of the seawall. The Town plans to replace the north inner harbour seawall with a higher wall that holds up better against flooding. The new wall needs tiebacks, and the staff report says that work is best done from the land side rather than from the water. The shed sits on that land side, so it has to move.
The staff report puts the start of seawall construction in 2027, and the building has to be relocated first. The Town had already approved money for state-of-good-repair work on the building, but most of it was never spent. Staff recommended moving the remaining $989,736 into a new capital project called Future Relocation of the Metro Marine Building, on the grounds that repairs before a move would not be cost-effective. Oakville News reported that council approved the funding. Money for renovations will be requested through the regular budget process once the building has a permanent site.
Where it lands is still open
The Bronte Waterfront Strategy suggests moving the shed slightly west and turning it 90 degrees so its long side runs along a planned inner harbour promenade. After renovation, it could take on historical and interpretive uses, with patios and a plaza around it. Staff wrote that the plaza could host pop-up vendors, food trucks and modular kiosks or repurposed shipping containers. Harry O'Shea, president of the Bronte Village Residents' Association, described it to council this way: "The promenade brings people there, the building anchors the space and the plaza activates it."
Not everyone agrees. Seventy-three residents of the condominium at 102 Bronte Rd, which overlooks the inner harbour, signed a petition asking council to keep the inner harbour "a calm and peaceful space." They want gardens, seating and walking paths there, with busier uses kept to Bronte Heritage Park and the outer harbour. Their spokesperson asked the Town to put the building back on its original site once the work is done.
Heritage rules also limit how the building can be turned. Mark said any change would have to be justified to the Town's heritage committee:
"I am confident that we can still achieve most, if not all of the parameters of the study, whether the building is turned or not."
He told council the current orientation, with the big doors facing the lake, is part of the building's heritage character, and that the rehabilitation could take about two years. The staff report says the final site and orientation will go through technical review, community consultation and the Oakville Heritage Advisory Committee.
The question came up again this fall. At the Ward 1 mayoral debate hosted by the Bronte Village Residents Association at Eastview Public School, candidates were asked how they would keep the Waterfront Strategy and the Bronte Village Streetscape Plan on time and on budget, Oakville News reported. No decision on the building came out of the campaign. The placement report goes to the council chosen in this month's municipal election.
The calendar from here
| When | What happens at the shed and around it |
|---|---|
| May 25, 2026 | Council endorses the Bronte Waterfront Strategy and approves the relocation funding |
| November 1, 2026 | Bronte Harbour winter storage season begins, running until launch |
| December 2026 | Boat repair lease ends and the operator moves out |
| January 2027 | Staff report back on placement options for the building |
| Late 2027 | North inner harbour seawall construction expected to begin, with the building relocated before work starts |
Boats will still be stored on the inner harbour for the winter. The move ends the repair business in the building, and Oakville News reported that winter boat storage in the inner harbour will continue. The Town's 2026 fee schedule lists the Bronte Harbour winter storage season as running from November 1 to launch.
Some of the other ideas in the Strategy are further off. For Bronte Heritage Park, it proposes more pavilion seating, a renewed playground, a refrigerated winter skating loop and an urban beach and picnic area. For the Bronte Bluffs, it proposes a West River Road lookout and a boardwalk at the water's edge. None of these projects has approved funding, and each will come to council through future budget talks.
For now, the shed is still on its original spot, with its doors facing the lake. In the village, the Bronte Village BIA's At Home in Bronte for the Holidays runs at Bronte Market Square, 2445 Lakeshore Road West, on Saturday, November 21, from 3 to 7 p.m. There will be a holiday market, caroling, Santa and Mrs. Claus, and the community tree lighting at 5:30 p.m., according to the BIA. It falls on one of the last weekends the shed is still a working boat shop.
At Niblock Real Estate, we pay attention to Bronte's heritage buildings, because a property's history and what is planned around it both affect a home's value. If you own near the harbour and want to talk about what the Waterfront Strategy could mean for your street, we would be glad to hear from you. Book a Discovery Call.
