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  #61  
Old Posted Mar 9, 2013, 10:26 PM
Drybrain Drybrain is offline
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One of the problems with Barrington is that there's a leisurely attitude toward fixing up buildings like this one. The city's the same way with public infrastructure. The state of the street just isn't seen as an urgent problem.
Agreed. Barrington is our most important marquee street, historically, and even with SGR being busier these days, it's still one of the most important. It's ridiculous that a major structure like this is allowed to become essentially a bare concrete shell.

Not quite as bad, though, as what happened to Toronto's Empress Hotel in 2010, when one wall collapsed under the weight of a massive sign, leading the building to be abandoned and the city to shut down two blocks of Yonge Street to protect drivers and pedestrians from further collapse. With no restoration plan from the owner or the city, it just sat there, semi-collapsed, for eight months, keeping Yonge Street half closed. Who knows how long that would've continued; an arsonist burned the whole thing down in January 2011.

So at least we're not the worst offenders, I guess?
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  #62  
Old Posted Mar 10, 2013, 8:48 AM
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Yonge Street has for a long time been a disaster more or less on par with Barrington. It is very similar to Barrington in terms of its historical role and there's a strong parallel between Bloor and Spring Garden Road as well. Parts of Yonge are still pretty seedy and it had a few very noticeable abandoned buildings, like the old bank offices across from the Eaton Centre. Like Barrington, it seems to have turned the corner a bit over the past few years. The attractive restoration of the corner building at Yonge and Temperance (northwest side) is an example of what most of the street could look like.
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  #63  
Old Posted Mar 10, 2013, 3:34 PM
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Yonge Street has for a long time been a disaster more or less on par with Barrington. It is very similar to Barrington in terms of its historical role and there's a strong parallel between Bloor and Spring Garden Road as well. Parts of Yonge are still pretty seedy and it had a few very noticeable abandoned buildings, like the old bank offices across from the Eaton Centre. Like Barrington, it seems to have turned the corner a bit over the past few years. The attractive restoration of the corner building at Yonge and Temperance (northwest side) is an example of what most of the street could look like.
Definitely turning a corner. Besides the Temperance Street restoration, there's the Five St. Joseph condos (where a row of Victorian commercial buildings will provide a produm for a set-back condo tower) and another condo project that will involve similar preservation of one of those old bank buildings. And yet another near temperance that will see a historic structure disassembled, brick by brick, and reconstructed up the block to make way for a development, while preserving the building.

It's that kind of stuff that gives the lie to the "old buildings are inefficient/incompatible with modern uses/obsolete" mindset. And makes stuff like the Roy Building demolition seems like the easy/cheap way out. (Though I still have hope that Starfish will pull something better than expected out of their back pocket.)
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  #64  
Old Posted Mar 26, 2013, 11:57 AM
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Not much has changed on this site...except the fence.

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  #65  
Old Posted Mar 26, 2013, 12:28 PM
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Not much has changed on this site...except the fence.

This arguably looks better than what was there before...
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  #66  
Old Posted Mar 26, 2013, 7:27 PM
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There were surveyors at the site at 11ish this morning.
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  #67  
Old Posted Mar 26, 2013, 9:14 PM
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Definitely looks better than before... and now that its demo'd, I think that it will be built as well.
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  #68  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2013, 3:56 AM
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Has there been any progress over the last couple of months?

Who knows what will happen, but I'm hoping that this and NFB will progress quickly.
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  #69  
Old Posted Jun 3, 2013, 12:07 PM
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Nothing has changed since that picture in March.
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  #70  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2013, 3:59 AM
counterfactual counterfactual is offline
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Updates....?

I recall reading somewhere (ANS?) months back that this was going to be "completed in 2013".

LOL. Typical Starfish properties. I suppose once E-space is ready for tenants in the fall (skeptical), the 5 sleepy Moes will move over and start here.

Also, Tramway building still looks horrific.

I think once this building is done, the contrast between the nice glass look should create pressure on the Tramway building owner to move quicker.

I don't understand some of these purchases. If I'm going to line up the capital to make a major purchase like this one--- the (very old) previous owner Morris Strug sold the Tramway building to someone recently-- I'm going to have some pretty clear ideas and plans about what I'd like to do with it. Not buy the thing, and be like "yeah... I'm going to restore it, in a few years. Maybe. Lesse. Uhmmmmm"
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  #71  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2013, 4:16 AM
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I'm going to have some pretty clear ideas and plans about what I'd like to do with it. Not buy the thing, and be like "yeah... I'm going to restore it, in a few years. Maybe. Lesse. Uhmmmmm"
A lot of owners are primarily investors who don't necessarily have much direct interest in making the street look nice. A lot of the owners literally only care about the percent of return they make on their investment every year. If they're getting rent or their property values are going up they don't experience much pressure to improve their properties or sell.

Lots of cities have absentee landlords who sit on properties for decades, hoping to one day cash in by selling off their lot to a developer who will build a highrise. This phenomenon only persists because of broken tax systems that provide a disincentive to develop and don't penalize property owners who have a negative impact on their neighbours. It's a classic "race to the bottom" situation that requires government intervention to solve.
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  #72  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2013, 4:32 AM
Drybrain Drybrain is offline
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Originally Posted by counterfactual View Post

Also, Tramway building still looks horrific.

I think once this building is done, the contrast between the nice glass look should create pressure on the Tramway building owner to move quicker.

I don't understand some of these purchases. If I'm going to line up the capital to make a major purchase like this one--- the (very old) previous owner Morris Strug sold the Tramway building to someone recently-- I'm going to have some pretty clear ideas and plans about what I'd like to do with it. Not buy the thing, and be like "yeah... I'm going to restore it, in a few years. Maybe. Lesse. Uhmmmmm"

Unfortunately, that is sort've the plan, I think. From what I understand (which may be out of date) the plan is to fix it up inside, install new elevators, etc, and then restore the original appearance. Which, yeah, could take years. It went from beautiful-but-rundown to looking like a cinder block masquerading as a building when they did this, though. Fixing it should be a major Barrington-related priority for the city.
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  #73  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2013, 2:15 AM
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Originally Posted by someone123 View Post
A lot of owners are primarily investors who don't necessarily have much direct interest in making the street look nice. A lot of the owners literally only care about the percent of return they make on their investment every year. If they're getting rent or their property values are going up they don't experience much pressure to improve their properties or sell.

Lots of cities have absentee landlords who sit on properties for decades, hoping to one day cash in by selling off their lot to a developer who will build a highrise. This phenomenon only persists because of broken tax systems that provide a disincentive to develop and don't penalize property owners who have a negative impact on their neighbours. It's a classic "race to the bottom" situation that requires government intervention to solve.
Someone, what sorts of tax incentives could be imposed? Also, is that something that should or could be in the (deservedly) berated Regional Plan?
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  #74  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2013, 2:18 AM
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Unfortunately, that is sort've the plan, I think. From what I understand (which may be out of date) the plan is to fix it up inside, install new elevators, etc, and then restore the original appearance. Which, yeah, could take years. It went from beautiful-but-rundown to looking like a cinder block masquerading as a building when they did this, though. Fixing it should be a major Barrington-related priority for the city.
Completely agree. What a horrible "repair" job they did on the face of the building.

What we need on Barrington, are some owners and landlords that take some goddamn pride in their property, and this city. Honestly, I sometimes wonder who to blame more, these sad & dimwitted landlord/owners or the dimwitted Mayors and Councillors that have presided over the slow decay of the urban core.
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  #75  
Old Posted Oct 11, 2013, 2:15 AM
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Construction of this project is set to start within two weeks.

Hopefully the NFB Building won't be far behind!
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  #76  
Old Posted Oct 11, 2013, 3:07 AM
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Construction of this project is set to start within two weeks.

Hopefully the NFB Building won't be far behind!
Thank the development god.. that hole was starting to get on my nerves.
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  #77  
Old Posted Oct 11, 2013, 4:31 PM
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Probably coincidence, But the Tip-Top Store opened on this site 61 years ago today.

Discovered that while researching this post:
http://blog.builthalifax.ca/2013/10/...-building.html
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  #78  
Old Posted Oct 11, 2013, 6:56 PM
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Thank the development god.. that hole was starting to get on my nerves.
Filling in a whole in downtown is important - there is going to be a lot of activity over the next year or so.
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  #79  
Old Posted Oct 29, 2013, 2:39 PM
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A hole has started to develop on this site. About half of the old foundation has been dug out.
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  #80  
Old Posted Nov 4, 2013, 5:10 PM
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its begun.
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