Farr Proposes Demoing Half of Gore Park Buildings

The Spec has the story here, with regards to the Blanchard proposal to demolish four buildings facing Gore Park between Hughson and James. Notable paragraphs:


"The downtown councillor is introducing a motion at Tuesday’s planning committee meeting to save 18-22 King St. E, the two westerly buildings schedules to come down. However, his motion would allow the demolition of 24-28 King St. E.

Development firm Wilson and Blanchard applied for a demolition permit in December for the stretch of properties on the south side of Gore Park, between James and Hughson, on the same day the municipal heritage committee asked that the buildings be placed on their registry."

I suppose it is better than demolishing all four, but still bad news. There's arguments about alteration, but these are clearly very old buildings that can't be replaced and made up a nice street wall, apart from the building that Blanchard allowed to decay so that demolition was necessary.

Obvious issues include the fact that while the city is trying to promote that block by making it pedestrian only and having various events in Gore Park, soon the street wall will have terrible looking gaping holes making the city's efforts pointless and making the main downtown area look even worse than it already does. If Blanchard would immediately build something on the large area he controls besides these buildings, that would ameliorate the situation, but I have much skepticism about these plans and have deep concerns that this area will sit empty for years.

Personally, even though I'm usually not a big advocate of city spending, I would be fine with the city buying these buildings and fixing them up. Perhaps the city could keep the police budget to a reasonable increase and use the savings for the purchase. It would be a much smaller project than the Lister. Although then again, the city isn't much of a landlord.

Bill Kelly on Blanchard's Downtown Proposal

I saw a tweet from @RyanMcGreel about a post from CHML's Bill Kelly on the Blanchard proposal for the heritage properties fronting Gore Park between Hughson and James. Wow. Here's a few quotes.

"Well, same goes for the Wilson Blanchard plan to bring down a few tired, old buildings and build a much needed complex that would include a grocery store, office space and residential."

"This Gore Project is a continuation of their investment in Hamilton’s downtown.
Demolishing  run down, non functioning buildings to be replaced with an attractive commercial/ residential property is not destroying our heritage, it’s building our future."

Really how dysfunctional are these buildings? The ground level floors have tenants including the Steel House Grill which was recently opened. Architect David Premi has offices upstairs in one of the buildings (28 King Street East). There's nothing stopping Blanchard from doing some renovating of the upper floors of the buildings and converting them to residential, where there's always demand downtown.

These buildings, some of which predate Confederation, can't be replaced if torn down. The area behind them is big enough to do a large project as the footprint of the buildings themselves is small.

Why has the city bothered with the pedestrianized area in front of the buildings if they are just going to be torn down in the end anyways? If they are gone, the Gore is that little bit less special and a lot less historical. Blanchard should just sell these buildings if he can't make them work as is.