St. Marys, Kitchener

St. Marys feels like a step back to the years after the Second World War. Small storey-and-a-half houses with steep gable roofs line Glen Road, St. Clair Avenue and Lorne Crescent under big shade trees. At the corner of St. Clair Avenue and Glen Road, the streets wrap around a planted traffic island, and landscaped medians run down the boulevards. The neighbourhood is protected as the St. Mary's Heritage Conservation District, the first in Ontario to recognize wartime housing. Lakeside Park's green slopes and Victoria Park's lake are each a short walk away.

The City's 2021 estimates count about 1,250 homes in the St. Marys planning community. Just over half are single detached houses. Apartment buildings under five storeys make up about one in five, and taller apartment buildings about one in eight. The rest are duplexes and row houses. In the 2021 census, about half the homes in the surrounding area were built in 1960 or earlier, and about a fifth between 1981 and 2000. The district's houses were built as veterans' housing by Wartime Housing Limited and Housing Enterprises of Canada, Limited, and most are one or one-and-a-half storeys.

Queen's Boulevard runs along the community. The nearest ION stations, Victoria Park and Queen, are about 1.6 to 1.7 km away, and Central Station about 1.8 km. Downtown is about 1.7 km away. The Laurentian Power Centre is about 1.9 km away.

The hospital site WRHN @ Queen's Blvd is about 0.2 km from the centre of the community. Lakeside Park, at 140 Lakeside Drive, covers about 15 hectares and has a toboggan hill. Veterans' Green, on Spadina Road East, has an interpretive green. Filsinger Park West is a natural area of about 7.5 hectares off Lawrence Avenue, and the Henry Sturm Greenway runs nearby. Woodside Park, with the Harry Class outdoor pool, is about 0.7 km away. The Victoria Park splash pad is about 1 km away, and Schneider Haus National Historic Site about 1.1 km away. The Mill Courtland Community Centre is about 1.3 km away.

• J.F. Carmichael Public School — JK to Grade 6. The public elementary school for St. Marys, with French immersion from Grade 2.
• Courtland Avenue Public School — Grades 7 and 8. The middle school for St. Marys.
• Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School — Grades 9 to 12. The public secondary school, with French immersion and extended French.
• St. Bernadette Catholic School — JK to Grade 8. The nearest Catholic elementary school.