Demolition application in for Brewery site in Inglewood

[bob1954]

That's some restoration!! I wish more of this can be done everyere. We're loosing to much history!

[DizzyEdge]

What people just don't seem to get, is random condo/retail development w/sandstone 100+ yr old buildings intermingled is way more valuable than random condo/retail development.

[DizzyEdge]

Old industrial sites are useless:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/herojh/

[Fiveway]

Old brewery not worth saving, says minister

Despite public lobbying, Alberta's culture minister seems disinclined to grant heritage status to parts of the old Calgary Brewery.

Some Inglewood-area residents have been lobbying city and provincial officials to have some of the old brewery buildings given heritage status, so that they could be restored. But the minister responsible seemed skeptical on Thursday.

Lindsay Blackett, the provincial minister of culture and community spirit, spent more than an hour on a private tour of the site Thursday morning.

After having a first-hand look, Blackett said that while he appreciates there is some historical value in parts of some of the old buildings, there is not enough left to be worth saving.

"To even consider trying to refurbish that is huge dollars," he said. "Who's going to pay for that? I wouldn't want to impose that on anybody, and I certainly wouldn't expect the taxpayers of Alberta to foot that cost"

Blackett says most of the main parts of the old brewery, particularly the metal-sided towers, are in such poor shape they should be knocked down simply from a safety point of view.

Blackett says he will get experts to the site as soon as possible to conduct a heritage assessment of the site, but the minister says he would like to see the derelict buildings razed before another heavy snowfall causes more damage.

In May, the property owner and developer Ron Mathison applied for a demolition permit, which would allow him to demolish structures occupying about 100,000 square feet of the 500,000-square-foot site because of health and safety concerns.

But the Alberta government has ordered a heritage assessment to determine whether some or all of the buildings should be saved because they may be historically significant.

That puts Mathison's demolition plans on hold until the assessment is complete.

From cbc.ca

[DizzyEdge]

^ We got the heads up on this. What's interesting is the metal clad parts are mostly the newest parts of the brewery, and also he orders a professional assessment but then from a single walk through he declares the whole place needs to be torn down without waiting for it?... perhaps someone from above in his party has given him some orders?

[DizzyEdge]

From just a few weeks ago:

"“Anybody who owns a historic building that’s anything over 100 years old, you’ve got to know that you’re not just able to knock them down without having Alberta Historical Resources Foundation take a look at it,” Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett said today in an interview. "

"Of course, the industrial relic built by A.E. Cross may yet fall to a developer's wrecking ball, but not before Alberta Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett has a chance to measure the value of the old sandstone, brick and mortar.

"There's a recognition, that for a province that's so young, we don't have many buildings that are a hundred years old, and if we destroy all of them, we'll be wondering where our heritage of significance is," said Blackett.

"We'll be left with 30- and 40-year-old buildings and lose a lot of our character."

Blackett said he will no longer allow buildings so old to be destroyed without a provincial assessment."

[Ferreth]

Lindsay Blackett, from Wikipedia (I'm open to a better source if someone has one)

So, from his background, he has no grounds to give an informed opinion on the structural integrity or cost of saving the buildings. That "expert evaluation" just became moot to me, as I'll be wondering if any concurrence with the minister's opinion is due to political pressure.

Last hope is the public tour - I'm hoping there are some real experts along on that one, and they get complete access to the building.

[WhipperSnapper]

"To even consider trying to refurbish that is huge dollars," he said. "Who's going to pay for that? I wouldn't want to impose that on anybody, and I certainly wouldn't expect the taxpayers of Alberta to foot that cost"

C'mon! There many, many organizations with the fundraising capabilites that would gladly turn this into some cultural project

[Fiveway]

Kent Herr (pretty sure I went to high school with that guy. Vicious children that we were made short work of that name.) calls out Lindsay Blackett in the Herald.

[wild wild west]

Really disappointed in Lindsay Blackett's flip-flop on this issue. I had hopes that he would be one of Calgary's better MLA's, but this is disappointing.

This "knocking down for safety reasons" argument is a load of crap. Our oldest buildings are not much more than 100 years old. Comparatively, in older US cities, buildings hundreds of years old have been restored and re-used. In Europe, buildings that were bombed to the point of being empty shells were restored to their former glory after WW2. I absolutely do not accept the "safety" argument - it's an utter cop-out, and particularly inexcusable in a city that lacks much historical fabric to begin with.

Re: Kent Herr - I agree with him, but wow, what were his parents thinking?

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by wild wild west

Really disappointed in Lindsay Blackett's flip-flop on this issue. I had hopes that he would be one of Calgary's better MLA's, but this is disappointing.

This "knocking down for safety reasons" argument is a load of crap. Our oldest buildings are not much more than 100 years old. Comparatively, in older US cities, buildings hundreds of years old have been restored and re-used. In Europe, buildings that were bombed to the point of being empty shells were restored to their former glory after WW2. I absolutely do not accept the "safety" argument - it's an utter cop-out, and particularly inexcusable in a city that lacks much historical fabric to begin with.

Re: Kent Herr - I agree with him, but wow, what were his parents thinking?

Unlike Mr Blackett I'm not going to prejudge the HRIA. I'm not going to sit here and say that none of the 6 buildings that they want to demolish need to be. I'm sure they all need some costly work, and perhaps some to the point of being far to great a sum.. But this is what the HRIA is to determine, and I wouldn't be surprised if it came up with something along the lines that 4 of them need immediate work or they will need to come down in the future, and that perhaps 2 are done for already.. but who knows, I'm not a historian/structural engineer expert, and neither is Blackett. He should wait for the HRIA and then proceed accordingly.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by wild wild west

I had hopes that he would be one of Calgary's better MLA's, but this is disappointing.

I did until that education bill. Listening to him talk about that, I realized just how little he understands about any issue.

[DizzyEdge]

What I don't get is his 180 turn around... it's almost like he naively followed the Act as it's written (like he should), and then someone was like WOAH woah woah what .. those laws aren't supposed to be SERIOUS, don't you piss off our biggest contributors.

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by wild wild west

Really disappointed in Lindsay Blackett's flip-flop on this issue. I had hopes that he would be one of Calgary's better MLA's, but this is disappointing.

This "knocking down for safety reasons" argument is a load of crap. Our oldest buildings are not much more than 100 years old. Comparatively, in older US cities, buildings hundreds of years old have been restored and re-used. In Europe, buildings that were bombed to the point of being empty shells were restored to their former glory after WW2. I absolutely do not accept the "safety" argument - it's an utter cop-out, and particularly inexcusable in a city that lacks much historical fabric to begin with.

Re: Kent Herr - I agree with him, but wow, what were his parents thinking?

Well, his fasther's name is Dick Herr....nuff said.

[1ajs]

hey guys why don't u get on the cuff of this issue and organize a showing of the thing to get a better idea and get an engineer to come along so u can get a better idea of what kinda shape it is in

[h0twired]

Originally Posted by 1ajs

hey guys why don't u get on the cuff of this issue and organize a showing of the thing to get a better idea and get an engineer to come along so u can get a better idea of what kinda shape it is in

Probably because we generally don't care that much about the old brewery and that in reality the money to restore the older buildings would most likely make any project cost prohibitive.

Lets face it. The buildings that are actually older than 80 years old are tiny and have been renovated and added on countless times. I would be VERY surprised if there was even anything worth saving.

Sure it would be nice to have restored and turned into some beer museum. However who would really come up with the money do take on such a project, especially when the land is worth more than the buildings and even the buildings would need millions to restore.

[kap384]

Originally Posted by h0twired

Probably because we generally don't care that much about the old brewery and that in reality the money to restore the older buildings would most likely make any project cost prohibitive.

Lets face it. The buildings that are actually older than 80 years old are tiny and have been renovated and added on countless times. I would be VERY surprised if there was even anything worth saving.

Sure it would be nice to have restored and turned into some beer museum. However who would really come up with the money do take on such a project, especially when the land is worth more than the buildings and even the buildings would need millions to restore.

Gotta love the fact that the internet allows people to post uneducated opinions

You comments on the condition of the buildings and the costs to restore are entertaining. At least a valid point was raised by 1ajs to have a qualified person evaluate instead of greedy developers and talentless politicians chiming in.

[bob1954]

Been added on to, several times ay, that's news to me.

[O-tacular]

Gotta love spineless politicians. "It's a recession so we can't afford to piss off developers or tax payers. Instead let's let developers piss all over us and bulldoze historical buildings so they can sit as gravel parking lots for the next 20 years."

[monocle]

An interesting read, this thread.

Any one have any have any updates?