To my crew and everyone who helped make it possible:

Thank you for all your support, team work and enthusiasm on our Grand Opening (GO) day! I want to thank you again from the bottom of my heart and say it is a real pleasure to work with a great team! Special thanks to the kids who helped redirect traffic and did a terrific job! Barrie’s Mayor Jeff Lehman, Patrick Brown our MPP, and Ward Councillors Lynn Strachan of Ward 2 and our great friend Councillor Peter Silviera or Ward 5, had to hike it in because we ran out of parking spots!  Thankfully, it was only a very short walk, thanks to the generosity of our neighbours for additional parking at the Crazy Fox Restaurant.
It was my great honour to have the pleasure of providing the Mayor, MPP and Councillors on a personal tours of our new practice and restored building, demonstrating the culmination of our efforts on combining state-of-the-art dental with the traditions of good service, great value and our clinic’s ideals.[pullquote] All within a historically important revitalized building – “The Grand Old Lady of Barrie” which neatly personifies the revitalization of Barrie’s Downtown core. [/pullquote]They all loved the view from our treatment rooms of Kempenfelt Bay and the multiple new condo developments in the downtown core! They had a great sense of humor. Patrick and the Mayor delivered commemorative documents during the ribbon cutting ceremony while Mayor Lehman noticed and appreciated the attention given to the decorations on the official red ribbons. He certainly has a strong attention to detail!
What a day that was! The weather forecast was for 5-10 cm of downpour to happen exactly at the time we started the event at 11 am until 2pm, but all of our positive energy definitely kept the rain away until the very end of our event, that was nothing short of a perfectly timed miracle of God! Steel Drum Hu did an amazing job to energize the GO team and keeping the gray skies away from our event by unleashing his rythms literally right at the corner of Wellington and Bayfield. Our porch made for an amazing perch to perform from! Many thanks to our incredible Community liaison Officer, Shelley Hofer who put an incredible amount of hard work and perspiration to pull it all off.
Some of the most notable comments from our community that elevated my heart was from residential neighbours and friend who drove by daily, and witnessed the story of the construction as it progressed. They couldn’t believe we pulled it off in time fro GO Day! They were blown away that we were actually seeing patients the week leading up to our GO event. Our neighbours were relieved to see that whomever became the present curator of the building did not simply chose to demolish the site but instead, preserve the historical beauty of ‘The Grand Old Lady of Barrie,” and triumphantly combine the timeless features of the building with a expansion that complimented, rather than detracted from the building’s character. We didn’t simply graft on more square footage but instead had a vision to enhance the late Edwardian Classism, with a modern twist, down to the layout of new windows and paint color choices.

Take your family on a free heritage walking tour and be my guest at 149 Bayfield street (#9 on the tour) to take in the architecture and history. http://www.tourismbarrie.com/docs/pdf-files/Grand_Homes_Tour.pdf?sfvrsn=0

What did the previous owners think? I brought them on a personal tour of the entire building and it certainly brought back lots of emotion and memories for Peter and Lynn Monovan. They ran Monovan’s Ski and Bike Shop in “The Grand Old Lady of Barrie” since 1985. Lynn is a terrific storyteller as she related how some of the greatest musical performers from the days of Prohibition would visit the building on Sundays to carry the party on. The building’s owner at that time was said to be the spinster daughter of the owner of The Royal York in Toronto. The Royal York was where the greatest Performers of the time reside and they would head north because of Prohibition and played on in The Grand Old Lady of Barrie after a hard weeks work. Back then, [pullquote]there was a grand piano in what is now our patient lounge, and they carried on their libations through the weekend. Rumor has it that Fred Astaire slept in the building![/pullquote] Peter and Lynn loved the fact that while I added all the space (“look at all this room, how did you get all this space?!”), many things for them remained exactly as how they remembered it. We preserved the Grand Foyer of vaulted oak paneling, the stained art glass and grand oak stairway, painstakingly restoring the banister by hand (“you fixed that ding on the banister!”) , preserving as many fireplaces as we could within what was allowed by building code.

Link to our FaceBook page for sneak preview photos and GO day events! www.facebook.com/GeorgianDental

We can see the momentum developing for Mayor Lehman’s vision of a “Complete Community,” with this project being performed only by local trades whose incredible professionalism, dedication and expertise I heartily support.  I extend our gratitude to Lisa Betram and her phenomenal crew headed by a very dedicated Don Reid from Bertram Construction Ontario and the visionaries at Formwork Studios, Keith and Akiko Currie. Don is the ultimate Site Manager. Among other things, he saved a member of his crew who had a heart attack, had a new son during the project and on the day before GO day, made sure the mulch in our flower beds were fluffed! The flooring and main stairs being done by Madrigal Renovations of Barrie- it’s impossible to keep those floors clean during construction! But, we’re not done yet. Details, details, details are still ongoing with Adam Elson of Wallwin, Jeff Abott from  Horizon Networks, Chris Kegel of Armor Technologies and Frank Curley of Patterson Dental who are truly performing an art to allow all the State-of-the-Art technologies to communicate cohesively with each other. Jean Akerman’s impeccable design style added the finishing touch and you can see her talent and design ‘signature’, on the reception desk of the patient lounge.
My crew are continuing to run the Raffle to support the Women and Children’s Shelter of Barrie. Thanks to our friends for all their generous support, both in purchasing tickets for the raffle and providing prizes for donation. We have an outstanding contribution prizes from Barrie businesses and patients.

Visit our community website for details and a list of prize contributors, get your Raffles now!  https://orilliadentist.com/2015/about-us/our-community

One last thing – On behalf of my crew, thanks to all my patients for giving us the reason to do this. And most importantly to Wendy, my wife, the three boys and our folks who helped give me the motivation to make it all possible. Wendy often times having to play the single parent when duties of the project called. You’re the best hons!

-Dr. Adam Tan DMD FAGD, Dental Surgeon. “Get Your Smile in Style!”