Quote:
Originally Posted by O-tacular
There are only a select few buildings such as Model Milk, the Devenish block, the old bank on 14th and some others like the old corner store Analog is in that I think have historic value. However, the ecclectic mix of buildings is what I fear will be lost and replaced with monolithic block long developments with storefronts that are distinguished by nothing more than a sign. Worse yet would be the faux mixed facade design with a bank occupying every bay like the HSBC in Kensington. I don’t know what the solution is, as I do believe we need increased density, but I worry that one single developer owning that much stock generally won’t have a good outcome.
Edit: I really hope that they at least bought one of the competing funeral homes by the X92.9 building.
|
Agreed. Hopefully the buildings you mentioned and anything else worth saving isn't included in the developers inventory. There's plenty of forgettable stuff on 17th to be able to redevelop for years to come without touching the nicer stuff.
Heritage protection can go too far, IMO. In the UK, there is very strong heritage protection with hundreds of thousands of listed buildings, and any time a railway station has to be upgraded it adds massively to the cost so you can preserve some minor architectural feature. However in Calgary, it seems that heritage protection is basically voluntary by the owner (correct me if I'm wrong) - which seems too far in the opposite direction.