A couple of new photos from yesterday afternoon. Hello to Urbanrat, who walked by I as was shooting photos from my car…
The old Mother’s place is long gone…
A view along Elliot St. now looks right through to the demolished Mother’s lot.
It looks like the building is being stripped down to the steel frame. I’m curious to see how they remove the tall vertical sign 🙂
wow.. it’s sad because the building actually looks even nicer now as it stands alone without the attached mother’s building. anyone agree ??
agreed
The building would look great if it was in a full commercial block, being used. But that’s only dreaming….
I’m left wondering if the owners would be demolishing these buildings if the City didn’t have so many restrictions on development in the downtown. I seem to remember a couple of proposals for the Mothers building over the last couple of years that got caught up in the “entertainment” restriction downtown. Anyplace trying to open downtown that included a dance floor of any nature was subject to so many restrictions that Council has accomplished their goals – no one is doing anything. As much as it pains me to see the loss of Windsor’s history as represented by these buildings, the nature and attitude of our current Council leaves owners with little room to move. From their perspective, better a parking lot with minimal taxes than empty buildings. We’ve become adversarial by nature instead of cooperative by choice.
I agree with the above. It’s a shame, becasue the Joker’s building at least is an architectural showpeice. It is uinque with the brickwork patterns and the glass block, the curved streamlined corner and those metal awnings.
In a city with vision it would have been reused. The Mother’s building I can understand and I do not bemoan its demolition, but everytime a building like this is lost, nothing is built to replace it, and it leaves another hole in our built landscape. More loss of our streetwall, and urban density helps to make our core area less and less intersting and different from anywhere else in the region. Redeveolpoment of the Joker’s building, and new construction on the Mother’s site to complement it, would have made for a nice commercial block, and an attractive retail location.
Shame on the City Council, and shame on the purchaser’s of the site. The continual lack of vision in this city, and treatment of the buildings we do have, sickens me.
In an era of environmental responsibilty there is little excuse for knocking down a perfectly good, structurally sound building (or in this case buildings) and sending tons of construction material and debris to the landfill,
But hey at least council voted for another big box development for our suburban neighbours to the east.
I don’t think the restrictions have added much negative effects. They tried to curb the bar explosion which is/was a good idea.
what I lament is the fact that the city doesn’t have a true vision for what they want to accomplish downtown. It is but a hodgepodge of ideas without any true uniformity for what is to be accomplished. Just like the mistake made by the DWBIa in allowing every building owner to stucco their buildings in the same drab design and limited use of colour.
It only makes sense. In a city of VERY limited resources, being led by people with VERY limited vision, when you continue to Build Out, there’s nothing left to do but let your core rot. Very sad, indeed, considering that the proportion of city councillors presiding over sprawl is only 40%! That means that the 60% of councillors in the core are allowing the minority to decimate their very own wards. Just look at Valentinis’ remarks after he approved more Big-Box “investment” in Ward 5. These developments are taking much-needed infrastructure cash away from their very own wards.
Jones, Postma and Valentinis have ALL gone way beyond their “Best Before” dates!
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
Sad thing is, they could have it both ways with this property. They could have torn down the old Grocery Store slash Mothers which was pretty rough looking anyway and kept the old Leons for reasons Andrew covered already. They could have stripped off all the ugly facading on the first floor and tastefully renovated the building for use as almost anything, even residential up commercial down, whatever. It would have been a real showpiece in a downtown that desperately needs something nice and they would have had room where the old Mothers was for some tenant/customer parking. And since this property is further south the owners would have dodged the vacancy bullet too if they played their cards right. Rexall was able to redevelop not far from there after all, on what was a vacant former CAA building (and if you go back far enough, a Rexall afilliated pharmacy oddly enough).
The worst part of the demolition of 810 Ouellette is that, once again, we’re left with a vacant lot in a prime downtown location. I doubt there will be any new development on that property anytime in the near future, if ever. Windsor’s atrophying economy can barely support the new construction happening in Tecumseh and LaSalle, let alone any major downtown development. It’s too bad because a lot of us can remember a time when downtown was the hub of the city and people had an awe and affection for the downtown that was unheard of in bigger, more urbanized cities.
Andrew… does city hall have any archived photos of the building back when it was Leon’s or anything ? i can’t even imagine how awesome that place must have looked all lit up at night and all that retro furniture.in the windows !!. damn it Windsor
Another one bits the dust. Does anyone know who the current owner is and what is planned for the site? Great buidling; sad to see it go.