Quote:
Originally Posted by halifaxboyns
One project I was involved in had an old building (known as the Ant Hill building) being proposed for demolition to be replaced with a new 8 storey mid-rise mixed use building). Heritage Planning was able to gain access to the site (with permission by the applicant) to do an assessment and determined the building had deteriorated to the point it had no heritage value left. It could not be restored - so they did not object to demolition because we had no methods to incentive them to incorporate it into the proposal (we couldn't provide tax credits for example).
But the heritage planners did ask that the historic sign of a business in the building (the Lido cafe) and some of the roof top cornice material be preserved and that a plaque with historic information on the lost building be put up on a prominent façade of the building.
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Oh no, the Lido! As an ex-Calgarian/Kensington resident, that makes me a bit nostalgic, though I'd probably never eat there again.
It's instructive to look at that building, though. We hear sometimes in Halifax that "oh, well, it's no Penn Station," or whatever, the implication being that we don't have anything THAT great, so why bother p[reserving anything?
That's all relative to what your local context is. Calgary is having discussions about
buildings like this, and its old
Cecil Hotel, which wouldn't merit a glance here. But in Calgary they represent a particular local architectural legacy and a connection to the past.
And as a (former) Calgarian, I really value that kind of plain, rough-hewn frontier architecture. It speaks of the place.