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PhotoTO: A Site for Sore Eyes

By Miles Storey

Queen St West Fire Aftermath by Miles Storey
A month after the massive fire that gutted half a block of Queen Street West between Bathurst and Portland at least two of the businesses whose stores were destroyed in the fire have relocated and are planning to reopen soon. Meanwhile, the site has emerged from a blanket of snow and ice revealing what little remains of the businesses and homes razed by the fire.
Photo by Miles Storey.

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  • rek

    What are the plans for the site now? Is there any reason the site couldn’t be rebuilt in the image of what it was, with the old brick façades and all?

  • Miles Storey

    I had a look around and couldn’t find anything but I think it’s early days. The businesses burnt out seem to have moved on, so presumably a lot of the insurance stuff has been worked out for them, but the buildings lost weren’t all owned by one person so I imagine there’s a lot to work out if there’s going to be a single development on the site, or several harmonious ones.
    It’s a heritage district so you’d hope whatever goes up there will be in context with the neighbourhood and the history of the block, but given that Toronto has no effective development controls whatsoever I can’t help but think that the development will consist of glass and aluminum.

  • Svend

    Whatever goes in should be a bit taller since it’s a main street – a maximum of 5 or 6 stories would suit the area.
    Solid brick like the old building won’t happen but it would be nice if an old brick veneer was done, anything with more character than concrete, aluminum, glass or bland architectural finish.
    The positive thing about this awful fire is that the new building will be safer and more efficient. Too bad the rents will reflect that as well.

  • EricSmith

    If the discussion of the design of the (presumed) Home Depot building is anything to go by, a recreation of what went before would be, according to current attitudes, a terribly declassé “Disneyfication” of the street.
    I dunno. I think that that style of building is quite attractive, whether a genuine, decrepit fire-trap or a reproduction. As Svend says, going higher would be in order. The building could step back from Queen as it went up, to avoid looming over the sidewalk.

  • TokyoTuds

    I would hope that since the buildings had separate owners, that 2 or 3 separate buildings will be developed. Smaller footprints, even if they do go to 5 or 6 stories, will give more variety and better fit into this historic stretch.
    http://www.carfree.com/cpix/2zur1030.jpg
    Tuds

  • warmflash

    Originally Posted by fiendishlibrarian
    No money, no pride, a brain-dead hipster intelligentsia that views the shabby and decrepit as “having character” and celebrates the mediocre, fears and sneers at excellence, restraint and discipine, and encourages sloth, indifference and contempt of the public realm in the form of squalor (“grit”, as in we’re not Coburg etc.), vandalism (“street art”) and endless, mindless spam-like postering (“reclaiming public space”), and there you are. Shabby is as shabby does. We get what we deserve, really.
    You can bet your bottom dollar, whatever is finally built, it will absolutely horrible and unbelievably cheap on every level.