Mountain Man
Senior Member
They have knocked down a few historic buildings lately, they don't seem concerned about history at all...
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General Construction Updates
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
maestro
Senior Member
Those are examples of structural reuse than heritage preservation.
The horrors of freezing a street in time. Continued redevelopment through intensification gets tiresome. Everything new over layered growth also feels artificial. 80% of Manhattan is not open to redevelopment which has turned unused air rights into a commodity. There is potential financial gains for property owners without redevelopment. Profiting from owning a building isn't a right of ownership either. 80% is crazy high and a contributing factor to sky high real estate in New York. There's no need to preserve 80% of Calgary's core as of this moment. 5% would be substantial.
O-tac
Active Member
I am really starting to dislike Truman.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
I'm not really lamenting the loss of Gresham Block, that building was crumbling. It would be awesome if they could save the bricks, but there was really nothing left of the original building worth saving.
O-tac
Active Member
Buildings like that give Inglewood it’s gritty character. Another sterile condo only detracts.
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
But Won’t Somebody Think About the Franchises!
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Agreed, the problem with Gresham was that it was so run down, anything of value fell off the building years ago. If it had been maintained and restored properly then we would still have it. I hope what replaces it is quality and respects the area.
This is a lesson for Calgary to start getting more serious about history, if we have buildings that are worth saving, then we need to keep them in good shape and work to protect them. Even modern buildings like Lacey Court should have been protected, but a developer screwed up and crackheads set it on fire.
Albertasaurus
Active Member
Heritage preservation is a balancing act, but in my time in Calgary I would argue that the balance just isn't there. I've seen too many historically significant buildings neglected and then be torn down with the excuse of "it was falling into disrepair", or "it was past its useful life". I don't need to remind anyone here that cities in other countries and even other parts of Canada do a far better job of maintaining and protecting buildings that are hundreds of years old. Calgary is one of the youngest big cities in the world, which makes protecting what little we have in terms of historically significant buildings all the more important - in a city with so little in terms of buildings of historic value, every single one of them is precious.
Inglewood is one of the oldest and most historically significant parts of Calgary. Who's to say that anything will actually get built on that site anytime soon? Is replacing a 3 storey building that helps give Inglewood its character with a condo building or, far worse, a parking lot a win in any way whatsoever?
Inglewood is one of the oldest and most historically significant parts of Calgary. Who's to say that anything will actually get built on that site anytime soon? Is replacing a 3 storey building that helps give Inglewood its character with a condo building or, far worse, a parking lot a win in any way whatsoever?
CBBarnett
Senior Member
For a neighbourhood of the scale of Inglewood I wonder what type of new development could have threaded that needle - a new place, but also gritty in the Inglewood "style".
The challenge with Inglewood's historic parts is that it never really was a complete heritage street - it's had parking lots, gaps, sprung structures and randomness since the beginning. Cumulatively it makes it a quirky place, but many spots were not particularly great individually or gritty in the way that makes the redevelopment style obvious. Combined with it's very small size, tiny local population and ~1km buffer to any other meaningful population cluster in any direction, it's a tough go - the status quo of the hood doesn't have the weight to hold out against incoming change, nor is Inglewood's style obvious to everyone to say new stuff should "preserve the gritty style of Inglewood".
To points of others, had we preserved some of the better buildings a few decades ago when they were in better shape. Had we ever finished the main street in the first place we'd have been even better off and had more to work with and more weight/population/use to help define the vibe that some want to preserve.
It's not a unique story to Inglewood, it's a broader Calgary story when talking about streets and preservation - too many areas are just too new and few communities have had a consistent urban "vibe" long enough to really lead to the preservation approach being effective. There's just not enough to preserve - because we didn't build enough good stuff in the first place.
Even the Beltline was SFH homes until relatively late, which is why it's mostly 1970s+ apartment development, not a neighbourhood defined by 1920s era historic apartment development. To be clear, we unfortunately did tear some old gems down but we also never built many in the first place. It's a story of Calgary never being an urban city until late in it's development, more than it's a story of success or failure of preservation policies.
Calgcouver
Active Member
If it's getting replaced, I want to see something like this:
and link:
and link:
Construction Complete at The Bordeaux in Brewerytown, North Philadelphia - Philadelphia YIMBY
A recent site visit by Philadelphia YIMBY has confirmed that construction is complete at The Bordeaux, a five-story mixed-use building at 2600 West Girard Avenue in Brewerytown, North Philadelphia. Designed by Ambit Architecture and developed by the Argo Property Group, with Tester Construction...
phillyyimby.com
Albertasaurus
Active Member
/\Yes! Brick, and no beige panels please
konradiical
Active Member
In Europe they rebuild older buildings all the time, so I dont see why they cant make a similar looking building
Agreed. For buildings that are getting built or replaced on busy retail corridors the bar should be higher and should be at least as good or better than what it's replacing.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Does anyone have pictures of Gresham in it's heyday? Before the cornice fell off and the sandstone bars under the windows crumbled away...
cameronhowe
Active Member
Can we please just have more of these style buildings around the city, puhhhhhleaseeee! This would be a dream.