I think preserving the facade of a historic building (i.e. its street-presence) is far better than demolishing it completely to be replaced by something else, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this. If only we had been more willing to do this in the past, rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach and demolishing much of our built heritage.

Also forgive me if I am mistaken, but I do believe the interior of the Kelly-Ramsay block was gutted by fire and rendered unsalvageable anyway.
 
David A said:
Oh for goodness sake there are still SO MANY EMPTY LOTS downtown!!! Why do they want to tear down one of the few decent historic buildings instead of building on an a nearby empty lot?
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Because whoever owns the parking lot doesn't want to sell it because it's ridiculously profitable.
That's the sad truth about most North American cities and we're never going to change it without a major push towards transit, biking and walking. If operating dozens of parking lots is no longer profitable, the land will eventually be sold and developed.
That said, I'd be all in for someone developing the parking lot beside this building and incorporating the whole thing to the project, something in the line of what @kcantor did with the Brighton Block, or what was done to the Pendennis Hotel, but bigger.
 
Macroman520 said:
I think preserving the facade of a historic building (i.e. its street-presence) is far better than demolishing it completely to be replaced by something else, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this. If only we had been more willing to do this in the past, rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach and demolishing much of our built heritage.

Also forgive me if I am mistaken, but I do believe the interior of the Kelly-Ramsay block was gutted by fire and rendered unsalvageable anyway.
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Except that making it convenient to demolish and go new versus ensuring that we retain IS an issue for me.

Sadly, we have had more than a few convenient fires over the years ie. Arlington.

With the KR, it was a precious unscrupulous owner and his cigar incident that caused this very significant loss and while what was rebuilt was as good an option as we had before us, we should NOT be permitting removal of character buildings to just preserve a facade.

Density bonusing, density right acquisition and FAR transfer are tools that can work to achieve a win win, but we tend to look at sites as singular or distinct objects versus as part of a broader block or area.
 
IanO said:
With the KR, it was a precious unscrupulous owner and his cigar incident that caused this very significant loss and while what was rebuilt was as good an option as we had before us, we should NOT be permitting removal of character buildings to just preserve a facade.
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@IanO, I think you meant "precarious" as opposed to precious? Anyways, I agree with you that eroding the factors that enable demolition over preservation is the issue. When facadism is the only real viable option, then that's fine if it's done with integrity. We have to do everything we can to preserve the historic structures we have left. We've lost some real treasures over the decades, but it seems (I hope) that there has been some real progress in historic preservation.
 
Macroman520 said:
I think preserving the facade of a historic building (i.e. its street-presence) is far better than demolishing it completely to be replaced by something else, and I know I'm not alone in thinking this. If only we had been more willing to do this in the past, rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach and demolishing much of our built heritage.

Also forgive me if I am mistaken, but I do believe the interior of the Kelly-Ramsay block was gutted by fire and rendered unsalvageable anyway.
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Yes it was.
 
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