Seeing as it’s been a while since I singled out and ridiculed a bad renovation job…
This one is bad. I used this one as one of my bad renovation examples during the Petcha Kucha talk a few months ago…
Located at Wyandotte and Parent, there are four buildings all in a row, all identical. At least they were before the Lion’s Pizza building renovation. 🙂
nah, we don’t need by-laws to prevent this kinda neighbourhood charachter ruining garbage. the red and beige (?) squares (kinda?) on either side don’t even match up for cryin out loud! there isn’t ONE straight line in ANY of that stucco! is the place to the right for sale? maybe the next owner of that will follow suit! i always like seeing those style buildings on wyandotte and as far as i know, it’s the only street in windsor with the few rows of this type. maybe university west has them too?
i’m not really getting the theme of this stucco job either…. asian? phillipines? not italian, or mid eastern i don’t think.INCAN TRIBAL????
i wouldn’t even rent the place upstairs because of that and it’s probly beautiful up there.
*sigh*
Theme? Play Doh!
I think it was done by an amateur as well. Closer looks reveal just how bad that stucco job is whch is surprising because most stucco looks ugly anyway. Too bad because their pizza is excellent!
It’s nice to see someone investing in the area, but to stucco a part of this building is a shame. Why not paint it? Is stucco that much more durable? When I see stucco I think of the South and West. I guess the original buildings look a little bland, so Lion’s wanted more colour. Back when these were new, you didn’t need colour to attract attention, as traffic was slower and there were lots more pedestrians.
I guess I’d rather see this than see it vacant. Barely.
It makes my eyes bleed.
Maybe they were going for the Moroccan look.
There should be some sort of regulation which prohibits this type of renovation. When buildings are joined in this way it makes the whole building look shabby if only one segment is ‘renovated’. Stucco and/or paint over brick should not be permitted as these obscure or cover-up the natural beauty of the structure. It would be best to awnings where appropriate and attractive signage. These renovators and business owners need some guidance…. without making the regulations overbearing… perhaps an involvement of the BIAs for such guidance thus providing a consistent theme to the areas…
JBM – Recent changes to the law now permit cities to prohibit this kind of “sprucing up”. I’m not sure exactly where the law is (maybe in the City of Toronto Act?). But following my Petcha Kucha talk, I spoke with Jim Yanchula in the planning department, who told me that he agreed this is horrible, and that the city now has the power to stop it. They just have to draft a planning regulation against it.
I’m not sure if they are working on it yet, or if it is in the works. But the fact that senior planning staff agree it is bad, and admit they now have the power to put regulations in place to stop it, is a good sign.
Hopefully they will.
Andrew, we can only hope. Many European cities seem to be more sensitive to preservation and appearance. There is no reason it cannot be done here as well.
I for one welcome our stucco neighbors!
There seems to be a lot of knee jerk renovation bashing on this site, some warranted, some not. Stucco is particularly reviled. I can’t comment as one who has observed this building in the real world, since I don’t live in Windsor anymore. However the impressions that I receive from the displayed image are such that I must disagree with just about everybody on this one. Far from being identical as stated in Andrew’s caption, these buildings all in their own way, have suffered the ravages of time and clumsy attempts at “upgrading”. The “original” facades appear worn, dirty and just plain dreary, in harmony with the half melted pile of sooty snow at the curb.(O Windsor with your foundry fallout pitted paint jobs and rust chewed tailpipes dragging funereal through the pot holed streets….) A variety of window and door replacements has obliterated the original street level frontage and has all the charm of a bad hairpiece from the dollar store. And the signage? Cheap,filthy (note the dirt-caked section of the furniture store sign that is visible), aesthetically nowhere. To me this is a picture of decay and a downward spiral to oblivion (see: General Motors, Chrysler, et all). In contrast, Lion’s Den Pizza presents a picture of hope and optimism. It looks clean, uncluttered, and bright. A smile on an otherwise frowning block. The color scheme is pleasant and highlights the architectural features well, especially the border around the second story window arch. The rectangles aren’t that bad. I think the sunburst top center is cool. The Lion’s Den Pizza sign is what it is (These are dark days for signage). The owners have obviously made an effort to reverse the sort of decline that is evident in the the rest of the block. I think that they have, for the moment at least, been successful, and I think that they should be praised.
Even though I think this stucco job looks like crap, I’d like to know what Jim’s thoughts are on graffitti tagged buildings? Acid only removes 70% of graffitti on buildings and there’s nothing else out there that’s better. Pressure washing and sandblasting removes the brick’s glaze which diminishes the structural integrity of brick just like sandblasting the glaze off of ceramic tile. So, say there’s graffitti on the building and someone calls to complain to 311 about graffitti on a building and the owner gets a work order to deal with it. Now what? The city is gonna issue another work order that it can’t be painted or stucco’d after it’s been tagged with graffitti? Catch-22. City needs to deal with the graffitti bandits first and foremost if they’re looking to reduce brick wall painting and stucco. How about showing a before stucco picture (like a few months before) of this building so we know if there were problems with the brick wall prior. It’s easy to complain when you don’t even know the circumstances behind why it needed to be done.
windsorite-in-exile – i totally see where you’re coming from, and i do applaude the owners for trying to bring some life to the block, and i should have said that in the first place. but in my opinion they just went about it the wrong way. cheaper, yes. but not right, or even well done. it’s those dreary, worn and dirty original facades we see here that certainly do need the attention, but not to be erased from the building.
and i think your positive attitude towards it is great (i really do), but when you’re seeing “a smile on an otherwise frowning block”, i’m seeing “a scruffy looking middle aged guy who’s down on his luck, with an independently moving eyeball looking around to boot”. why? you should probly ask? because no matter how attractive he may have been in the past, or how well he could clean up just given the chance, no matter how hard you try, that damned eyeball moving around all by itself is going to be a distraction and take away from all the effort you put into his rehabilitation; dispite how bright, and thoughtful, and clear this rouge eye may be on it’s own.
that’s the best i get at analogies ok? sorry lol!
and David – great point on the Catch-22! that’s absolutly what would happen. but i’m not sure what can be done to stop taggers. the only way to do it is to stop them before they’ve done it and we can’t really do that, right? we could catch them in the act, but the damage is done.
worst of all there isn’t one decent artist amongst the windsor taggers!
that’s another part of the problem. the crap windsor taggers laydown takes a fraction of a second to complete. no matter how many police patrols you had they’d rarely be caught. at least if the guy cared about his work he’d take his time.
why can’t good ol’ paint thinner take it off? is it something to do with the nature of brick itself or is it another case of destroying the glaze?
also David – as for you request for a before shot. 20 bucks says the the other wall wasn’t done at all. you can probly just go check it out 😉 lol!
Tha tbuilding wasn’t that bad in shape before it was stucco’ed. It was painted a light magneta colour for some reason.
As for the dingy, disrepair look of the other buildings. Well, it doesn’t take much to power clean a building and use a little paint. Maybe even add a few cloth awnings at a minimal cost. I am sure it ismuch cheaper than stucco! The reality is that we are destroying the very fabric of this cluster of buildngs because once stucco is laid it can never be reversed due to the holes drilled into the brick.
As for the Planning Department, Jim is a great person andunderstands the needs of a city and it’s esthetics. But does council have the willpower to stop it? I don’t think so. So the Planning departments hands are ALWAYS tied.
Check out Andrew’s Dominion Drill Twist to see how a building facade can be renovated. They actually painted and then glazed over the brick to bring it back. All without removing it. From what I understand it didn’t cost all that much either.
Where there is a will…
Is that some kind of belated April fool’s or something, ME? I looked at the Dominion Twist photo and I see that the brick is several different tones of red with grey mortar. There’s no way that was painted. If such a thing exists, I’d love to see the link for the manufacturer’s website…
Or are you saying it was painted, sandblasted and then reglazed? Well, the bricks look too sharp to appear sandblasted. I don’t even know how you reglaze brick that’s already on there unless you’re referring to coating it with varthane like they do with some of the cement posts at Jackson Park. The brick’s glaze is from burning a rectangular block of clay in an oven at something like 2000 degrees and I don’t see the brick charred looking from a flame thrower.
As for mineral spirits and paint thinner to clean brick, don’t. I’ve tried stuff like that before. If it’s recent, it’ll just smear and that two square foot graffitti tag ends up being a smeared four square foot super turd.
That older brick is very porous and the graffitti is shot so far inside the brick from the spray cans that after trying to wash it out with acid you end up with that tag’s ghost that haunts the brickwork with the leftover residue for an eternity.
I don’t know how they did it or what they did but they did in fact paint it as they were using a small roller (about the height of the brick) with a tint on it. I was there when they did it. Then they did the same thing afterwards to cover the paint with a coating. I don’t know what they used but I was as shocked as you are.
In some cases stucco looks ok to me but you have to consider the surrounding neighbourhood and in this area it just stands out too much. Plus, when you’re right up close to this building, you can tell this was a cheap renovation job and in 10 years it’ll look even worse.
Regarding graffiti, it continues to be a problem in every city in Ontario because our justice system is a complete joke.
To be honest, I kind of like it. The reason is that, for now, it adds some vibrance to the street. And, unlike paint, stucco can easily be torn off down the road when someone decides it looks corny (which should have been obvious.) But, on the other hand, the colors aren’t terrible, and it looks like it’s on a street that needs some color. As for an amateur stucco job…well, that IS a problem. If you’re gonna make your building corny-looking, at least do it right.