Weekend Roundup

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• ha! more stucco... well, it could have been worse I suppose (there are some brick after all!). Is that the old Top Hat site? (and tell me you are not serious that it will be a BK?) You know, nothing like coming out of the Symphony at the Armories after a nice dinner out at BK! hahah
  ps. Congrats to Phog. I voted!

• ha! - Yes to the Top Hat site, and yes to it being a Burger King.

• I'm impressed with the new Burger King. That's a lot of brick on it, unlike the all stucco Burger King down the street that will be torn down for the tunnel plaza. This looks 10 times better. And it's using the classic dark brown colour of local Windsor clay that a lot of the downtown houses were built with in the 20s and 30s. And, as I recall, the Top Hat had white stucco, so that's a huge reduction in overall stucco use in downtown. I think this is a great overall improvement for downtown.

  Also, I've gotta hand it to them for building it in record time. Quite unlike the ugly TD building that's still just a hole. Is that gonna be the joke as the new Doherty's hole in downtown? BK started after the demo for the TD site and it's already done. Got to hand it to that construction company. Who would want to deal with Petratta anyway after seeing how slow they are to build anything? If Petratta is an example of local construction companies, no wonder so many out of town firms get hired. The Reichmann's were building skyscrapers in Toronto and Montreal in that time and they can't even finish a hole here...

• When are we going to have guidelines for our buildings downtown? This isn't all that bad but gee more stucco? Don't architects have any pride anymore?

• to: ME. No, they have traded their pride for greed. Its much cheaper for stucco finishing touches then stone work. Its (unfortunately) always about the bottom line. But I agree with David, for a BK, its not that bad. and i did laugh about the "overall reduction in stucco comment"! Lets just see how they manage to make it tacky with signage!

• true it's not THAT bad (or maybe we're just getting complacent?). walking by it the other day i thought "hey, at least the entrance isn't in the back with the parking lot." looks like the entrance is in the front!! can you imagine?? that must have took some brainstorming to come up with an idea like that. an entrance in the front. genious.

• Hey folks lighten up on the Petretta comments. First of all Dave Petretta is respected name in Windsor contracting circles. He is one of very few gentlemen left in the industry. Secondly building a one story BK out of sticks and plywood is very different undertaking than building a bank building with one floor of underground parking. The other guy's job always looks easier until you have to do it yourself. The BK was obviously an accelerated construction schedule. That schedule does not come cheap for winter construction. Complicated and detail oriented projects take longer to finish just by their nature. The BK building probably has a built in life cycle of 7 to 12 years. The bank on the other hand is probably in the 50 to 70 year range. You get what you pay for.

• pinstripes - Thanks. There is one person here for some reason who feels the need to constantly drag Petretta's name into unrelated conversations.

  I think anyone with half a brain can see that a burger king and a 3 story bank building are two different projects.

• How old is the old TD Bank up the street that they are moving from? How long is that life cycle? Will it be demolished? How long did the old RBC bank used for this site last for before their tastes changed and it was vacant? In 10 years, TD Bank will want another new building to move into and this one will be vacant. Another three story bank is just another disposable building. What's the other 40 years ago good for, if it would last that long, anyway?

• I'm willing to bet that the BK building will be tenanted by it's original owner a lot longer than that TD building.