Saturday, January 10, 2009

Coming in off the wire...

Another day, another government group wanting to wreck the Exchange District...

Thanks to this blog's keen readers. This comment came in anonymously today.

"Manitoba infrastructure and transportation is thinking of developing the [Reiss] Fur building for their new office... It also involves tearing down an adjacent building for parking but then rebuilding the facade brick by brick. Also worrying is that in addition to cutting a new entrance into the existing facade they want to cut out the top corner of the uppermost floors for a garden terrace. This would happen on the main corner of the building on King i believe.
Its all very preliminary but i thought you might find it interesting."
Reiss Fur/Stobart building (1903), cor. King St. and McDermot. From U of M Building Index

The "adjacent building" would presumably be that textbook example of "demolition by neglect," the Ryan Block at King St. and Bannatyne.

8 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Crocus Building contains a small, barely visible top-floor terrace. If it's done like that it might not be such a bad thing, but I'm not exactly confident in the government's ability to do things right.

5:53 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If its critical that an air of authenticity remain, that's how it should be done, brick by brick.

10:00 PM  
Blogger Christian Cassidy said...

Thanks for posting this. I'd be interested to see more about the proposal.

I think that for a project like this consideration should be given to allow for changes like that - as kk said, they did it with Ashdown's.

Though, with the recent "bait and switch" that the WRHA did on Main I would want to see some stronger bind to the approved design, not to be able to say "ooops, we ran out of money and can't do it like we proposed".

The intersection where the Ryan Block is is a very important one to the look and feel of the Exchange.

11:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Get real! If they tear down the Ryan façade it ain't never comin' back! The surface parking monster strikes again!

6:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@6:33 - True enough. Has a building's facade ever been reassembled in this city? Last I heard the Empire Hotel's iron facade is still languishing in a yard somewhere.

8:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow, four K-Cars in one pic. :)

9:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah and if that pic were today there'd be eight J-body (Sunfire/Cavalier) GMs.

5:40 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Be warned, if the building is turned into any type of government office building it will be ruined. Look at the horrible windows on the Crocus Building, that is what will be used on this building and the interior will be done in bargain basement Winnipeg modern.

12:40 AM  

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