So what does beyond repair mean? Are the walls caving in but only on the upper floors?
I can't see how these buildings are any more far gone than say, the Hotel Hamilton, or the CBC building on James. Both of those were totally gutted down to the brickwork while being repurposed for their current uses. And both were completed by private developers without subsidies. I would like to hear from those developers on the issue of the Gore Park buildings.
The real issue with the buildings is that they don't fit Blanchard's business model that works well with larger buildings. He told Sean from Bikehounds in an interview that he wants one large tenant for the space, rather than several smaller ones. One big cheque every month. It is unfortunate that these comments never made it to public record because I think they betray the real, non-structural issues with saving these buildings. You can read the comments here:
http://www.raisethehammer.org/comment/84538
Of course, it isn't impossible to create a large retail space within a row of commercial buildings. Actually it's pretty normal. Look at the Morgensterns clothing store on James for a good local example. 18-22 King St. was originally setup this way when it was built to house a dry goods warehouse.