With the exception of brief gaps, the former Dominion Furniture building at James and Vine had been continually occupied for the last 60 years: From 1949 to the early 80s by its namesake firm, then owned and maintained to high standards
from the late 1980s until around 2004 by Sam Sniderman, before a brief downshift to the Friendship Gift Shop. After the building was purchased a few years later for $700,000 by Bill Curran and Tim Potocic, there was additional work done to the tune of
$3 million to
$4 million in base building and office renovations. (Even then, they opted out of a true facade restoration, choosing instead to swap masks.)
Proportionately speaking, this seems as if it might be in the realm of Blanchard's ballparked
$10 million for 18-28 King East. Or maybe it's way off base. It's hard to get a true apples-to-apples sense of project budget because there just aren't that many apples out there. Despite the ownership of older buildings by various entrepreneurs, there has been limited appetite for full-on heritage restoration in the city AFAIK. How many have had a professional brick repointing done, let alone attempt more intensive work such as
cornice restoration?
I'm not at all encouraged by the preliminary napkin sketches and I would agree that the drama is being overplayed by the properties' owner, hopefully to the eventual benefit of these pre-Confederation buildings. I'm still reminded of
Blanchard's comments to Paul Wilson back in October 2007: "They say there are technical problems and they can't do it. I don't believe it…. Take these good buildings, fix them up, keep the city ticking."
That said, the city has been woefully remiss in not designating these buildings.
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