The new TD bank was up for debate at council last night… Reader Sylvain sent along a few photos that he took of the demolition.
Thanks for passing these along Sylvain!
Photo c. 2008 Sylvain Cote
Photo c. 2008 Sylvain Cote
Photo c. 2008 Sylvain Cote
Photo c. 2008 Sylvain Cote
Photo c. 2008 Sylvain Cote
Floor plan of the main floor of the new bank.
As you can see it won’t be much to look at.
It looks to me to be a bigger version of the TD that was built out in the sprawl on Walker Road in the new Home Depot plaza.
There is a copy of the report that went to council last night with the drawings here.
Seeing that block torn down makes me very sad. In fact, I had my wedding reception upstairs at Patrick O’Ryans a month before they closed the doors.
It reminds me of how I felt when they tore down Fast Eddy’s for Riverside One.
very cool, i missed taking during that time it came down. owen really wants to hang out with us next time we go shooting, so hope we can go shooting again soon. unfortunately we were sitting at opposite ends of the table tonight. i was listening to the Cable 11 story on this before i left for the meeting tonight.
The only good thing to come out of this is the 51 new underground parking spots from the report that are badly needed in downtown…
I wonder if they’re gonna be as quick to build so they can start paying property taxes like the new Burger King at Goyeau. I can’t even believe they’ve already wood framed the wall and roof for BK, even in these extreme colds we’ve been having… Petratta is like the slowest construction company on the planet. Weren’t they the ones who took forever with the casino addition? It wouldn’t surprise me if they were somehow involved with EC Rowe.
Council folded like a card house to Petretta’s desire to ignore the need for the daylight corner on this building. Makes me wonder why we even have paid staff at city hall if they can just arbitrarily ignore the recommendations of the experts for shit like this.
Cities these days aren’t even allowing banks to be built in their downtown. There’s no commercial/retail on the main floor to promote vibrancy. Here, we’ll take what we can get!
All of them – it was a unanimous vote – said (and I am paraphrasing) “we should be happy we have any development at all in our downtown. Welcome to Windsor, City of crumbs.
Just read the third page of today’s Star, where Petretta told Council that this three storey hunk of junk will cost between $15-20 million. How do they even come up with these numbers?
What is a daylight corner?
You are right Chris about the ideology of “we take only what we can get”. Which is a bunch of hogwash! But we do need banks downtown because the city scares white collar business out of the downtown. They have done it numerous times with Green Shield being the largest business to run away even though their desire was to be downtown.
Rich a daylight corner is an angled corner for better visibility and walkability. Instead of the 90 degree corner on the building it would have an angle cut across it. This may reduce the footprint byt a few square metres but that is all. Of course council caved like they always do. Folks, now you know why our downtown looks like watery porridge coughed up from the bowels of hell. What is the point of recommendations when these arm-chair idiots wave away guidelines and smart development.
Blech. This thing is a mess. Looks like some kind of mutant arts-and-crafts/techno mish-mash. Wouldn’t guess it was a bank but for the TD on it, could be a hair salon. How about some columns, something suggesting permanence? That is why banks were built to grand standards in the past. Don’t worry, this one will be torn down in less time than the old building.
It does look rather horrible, doesn’t it? More bleak streetscapes. Trying to console myself that at least the glass is going to be clear and not that ugly green stuff, or worse, the reflective pink that so many architects vomited upon hapless downtowns in the nineties.
I bet that it will be glass and grey or metallic in nature. every new building downtown seems to be the colour of grey or metal. I didn’t realize that downtown was the new prison.
Andrew, you forgot to say bank “tower” like our local media does. Though I never knew a “tower” was only 3 stories. Such sensationalism over nothing…
Here’s another conception of this vomit. What a joke.
http://www.windsorstar.com/news/Bank+deal/1196061/story.html
Lesser of two evils in this case
That building combined with the Post Office across the street made for the deadest block downtown.
Having absolutely nothing to look at on that block is more pedestrian “unfriendly” as that daylight corner. Thats the whole reason other downtowns ban banks and offices from Main floor space. In this case the former bank which also did not have a daylight corner was the greates blight downtown ever had. The effect of deterring pedestrian traffic between downtown and the river was equivalent to stringing up barbed wire across Ouellette. We’re talking about a very bad situation to begin with. Would a daylight corner have been preferable, sure, more ia always better than less. Isn’t that the city’s greenlink policy?
The only other possible solution ever attempted in any other downtown is what was done in Kalamazoo Michigan. The city started a development corporation that was funded by other levels of government and philanthropy. That development corporation bought up properties such as this and then sold them below what they paid to developers who would put up what the city wanted. They city bought up run down bars and other undesirable properties, levelled them and put the “ready to build” property for sale for far less what they invested into it.
Thats not an option here, not enough philanthropists or government funds to allow that.
New design guidelines and sign bylaws in downtown would prevent ugly design. We’re the largest downtown in North America that lacks separate sign bylaws to the rest of the city. Thats why we get all the neon, massage, strob lights we do.
Look on the bright side. All that glass will contribute to jobs! Just think how busy window cleaners will be. Also, it will be most economical when it comes time to tear it down.
I believe that the architecture just doesn’t provide any inspiration for anyone visiting the downtown core. The end result just looks like something someone slapped together without a construction plan. Then again, it may provide pigeons with lots of roosting opportunities and keep them off the streets.
Guys thanks for the interesting discussion today…
A few points:
David – From what I understand the underground spots will only be for employees. Not a public lot.
I do not believe that Petretta was involved in either the Casino or the EC Row project.
They are a contractor – they build off the plans they are given. They don’t design the buildings themselves. They’ve built such things as the Shoppers Home Care on Howard and the Rexall’s around town.
Chris – you can’t blame Petretta on this, they are simply trying to push forward with the plans they have been given by their client. Every developer in the world simply wants to build their projects as quickly and as cheaply as they can.
Davide Petretta was kind enough to allow me to walk through the old Manning House prior to demolition.
It falls back on council and planning to enforce the guidelines they want followed.
Mark – I disagree with your comments on the old post office building. That is a great building, and the scale and power that the architecture represents is an historic asset to our main street. A main street that is an ugly jumbled stuccoed mess.
The example of Kalamazoo buying and demolished downtown structure sounds like a nightmare. We have tons of “ready to build” sites in the core, the problem is no one wants to build there because downtown is a wasteland.
Andrew, the post office bldg is a great bldng but making a downtown pedestrian friendly means activity on the main floor. You could fix that block where the post office by simply replacing the planters with a designated sidewalk vendors & carts. I love trees as much as the next guy but I’m a put people first kind of persson
I also misrepresented what Kalamazoo was doing. They never took down any bldgs with historical or design significance. In fact all new blgs adhere to a design standard that does not allow glass bldgs. You should see their downtown transit terminal, how well it fits into an urban setting.
Kalamazoo also didn’t demolish the buildings they bought, sometimes the city would simply buy them to get rid of undesirable tenants and sell or lease only to tenants that would contribute to the downtown tapestry even if at a reduced rent. Or they’d buy the bldg and rezone it for more appropriate uses, ruling out undesirable uses and then sell it at a discount accounted for by the zoning change.
Speaking of the Post Office building, has anyone looked closely at it lately? The walls are actually crumbling…it’s quite noticeable a few floors up on the north part of the building on the side fronting Ouellette Ave.
I’m one for new development and investment in this city but we should have design standards. This building is ugly as hell! That stretch of Ouellette is a wasteland for walking around, but putting a bank on that corner as oppose to zoning for more retail/commercial business won’t help the situation either. Windsor desperately needs these jobs to stay downtown to support other businesses, but TD closing 2 other locations is only hurting other sections of downtown.
Great photos…hmm plans to a bank eh! Who’s in!
Mark, if I remember correctly it was the bar owners and lunch counters that complained to council about vendors (hot dog, sausage, hamburger carts) on the sidewalks. They complained it was taking money away from them and coucnil did a knee-jerk reaction and put by-laws inplace where vendors couldn’t sell within a certain distance of said establishments. Then they licensed the crap out of and most went bust.
That is one main thing I miss about downtown. Getting a hotdog and sitting on the street or by the river with my daughter. It was quality time that was pissed away by a greedy few.
We have design guidelines now for the “urban village”, glengarry marrentette, east riverside, and soon Sandwich, but none for downtown?
Why not? I’m genuinely curious about that.
Chris S – Why? Because I truly believe no one in power/administration cares about reinventing downtown Windsor.
Andrew, as always I truly appreciate your level headed approach and sensibility. From what I have been reading here and at other Blogs the citizens of this City really do not have a good grasp of how difficult it is to attract a National tenant who will not only contribute significant dollars to the City’s coffers, but also help to promote a vibrant core. I am not going to speculate on how many employees will be working in this downtown location, but certainly the owners of The Junk, Chanosos, The Keg, Starbucks, etc., etc. will be happy to provide them with their services.
It sounds like many of your readers really need an education on Construction and Development. Do you think anybody would be foolish enough to get into a develpment opportuntity without first understanding the true costs and value?????? So, this petty argument about a silly “daylight” corner, which truly has no merit in Architectutral design really has no place in todays times. And FTR, we did not build the Casino, nor do we do Road Construction
Davide, thanks for dropping by. I give you credit, of all the people who are talked about on here (critically or not) from developers to city administration, elected politicians to land owners, you are the only one who’s ever come by to leave comments. Whether or not we agree with what you have to say or not, I still give you credit for doing so…
As I stated above, regardless of how I feel about the bank’s look and design relative to the street, it’s not you I place the blame on.
The blame from me lies firstly with our Council and their unwillingness to stick to reports, then with our planning department for not enacting and enforcing better design guidelines for new construction in the core, and lastly with TD’s architects.
I can’t really blame you, you’re a construction company, and you want to construct. You did take a big eyesore away from Coco, and level it. Yes the construction will lead to some good paying jobs over the next year for Windsor, and I’m certain no one here can argue that we don’t need them. Hopefully the new TD bank see a few new jobs created. If it ends up being a lateral move, that only results in the branches at Ouellette and Wyandotte, and University and Victoria being left vacant with no gain, then maybe we have to ask why? In this economic climate I can’t see a huge market for either building once they are vacant…
Hopefully as you stated above some of the locally owned businesses will see an increase in traffic with more workers being placed in closer proximity. I certainly do hope that something good comes of this.
Thanks for clarifying as well that you don’t do road construction or weren’t involved in the Casino.
Andrew,
To follow up to Davide’s comments, we are the architects of record for the proposed new TD bank, which has generated an interesting amount of discussion here. We as a firm have worked with Petretta Construction for many years and were proud that he gave us the opportunity to design a new, progressive and modern building for his client on such a prominent downtown site. We find it interesting and exciting that a design can create so many reactions both positive and negative, but it does lead to the conclusion that some people are passionate about what happens in the city and especially downtown.
We understand that this particular design may not be every body’s cup of tea, but it would be a boring world if everything was cookie cutter and consistently referenced the past. This building is a culmination of many influences including a restrictive site, TD’s prototypical guidelines, and owner preferences and of course our own initiative. Unfortunately we feel that the rendering does not fully capture the transparency, depth and detail of the structure.
We suspect that some of the criticism for the design arises from lack of knowledge of the process, discussions and decisions made from conception to where we are today, but either way open discussion or opinion are what drives progress. We are looking forwards to seeing this development take place and hopefully when completed will become an exciting part of the downtown core.
Stephen Berrill B.Arch OAA
Architectural Design Associates Inc., Architect
Stephen, I think the readers here understand very well what this building is about. And, as you say, you are governed by “TD’s prototypical guidelines” and therefore these crappy cookie cutter design pays no benefit to any community in which they sprout. There is just no character to them other than some big bank exec’s ego.
Steven, I will grant you that perhaps the renderings we’ve seen so far don’t do the bank any justice, so, if you are able to, I will offer to you to post any and all rendering of the new bank that you would like to forward to me.
I can be reached by email: andrew@internationalmetropolis.com
If you can send along any renderings, please feel free to do so, I would be more than happy to post them here.
I look forward to learning more about the design process that Stephen touches on. I realizes there are a tonne of factures going into any building like this – codes, etc…no small task. But as far design, what was the process? How does this building relate to its immediate neighbours? – And, community at large? Is this building in keeping with Windsor’s Vernacular? Does this building have proper scale and mass? Are materials, or, design elements used reflective of the area, culture, etc.. I don’t want to be critical if there is more that I’m unaware of.. I would really like to hear more about this process!
Yes, I believe that in some municipalities there are holes in the design process. Windsor is not alone in this. Several years ago, Kingsville lost a significant part of its downtown charm through fire. I am referring to the the southwest corner of Main and Division. Motorco erected a structure to replace the vacancy. At the time it created quite a controversy but the unattractive structure was built and remains. The town has had several catastrophes in its downtown and in every instance the remedy was not in keeping with the downtown ‘charm’. I must say however that there are examples where the owner/proprietor has made renovations to their place of business and have maintained the Victorian quality. It can be done.
And I forgot to mention… we also at one time had light rail service to Leamington and Windsor. I wonder if all the expensive upgrades to Highway #3 would have been necessary had this service continued.
UUUGLEEE!! Close second to the one that was the red & green monstrosity on Ouellette at Shepherd(?), now refurbished.
Hmmm. Seen designs such as this before. Does little to beautify a downtown core. But perhaps due to the image banks what to maintain. Such a shame since it deadens any corner of any city.
Urgh. It’s hurting my eyes. Typical ADA stuff – has J Kavanaugh written all over it with his typical mish-mash of styles, trying to be cool – but in the end looks like all the banks they do…. a typical unaproachable square box. IT NEEDS the daylight corner just so it isn’t so intrusive! God save Windsor. We get a client like this and this is all we can do!?
To the person who is using my name: I do not, nor have I ever gone by the name “Jenn Fabbro” so next time you want to be a coward and use someone elses name to post nasty comments, get the name right.
Working downtown it’s refreshing to see activity like the new TD bank building……speaking for myself and others that work here, we like the design….. Not ugly at all as described here………the building it replaced was decrepit and neglected. This is called progress.
The architects did a great job livening up the old downtown!
The old Eberweins building next to this now needs attention – it’s going to detract from the new bank.
Now that progress is being made on the bank building it’s looking really good, anxious to see it completed.
Hi Linda, I had a chance to walk though before the demolition and the old Eberwein’s is gone. The Canada Gift Shop is the remain building.
then that needs to go too -the sooner the better ! LOL
I disagree. Demolition is not the answer. We’ve lost more than enough, more than we can afford. Our downtown is in shambles, due to short sighted demolitions over the years. Once the new bank is open, we’re going to have two more vacant buildings in the downtown to deal with…
Hi ME you know what gets my goat is the city built that stupid Bistro in the park and now hot dog vendors and anyone else for that matter can’t set up shop in the park that goes along with the whinning the dowtown bar /restaurante owners were pissing and moaning about