The building on the north east corner of Ouellette & Wyandotte Streets has long been one that interested me. It looks like a standard building that you can find all over every city in North America. However, it is the victim of a renovation that hasn’t aged well. I believe it was renovated around 1992.
Before becoming a payday loan operation, it was previously home to the TD Bank. TD occupied the location from 1960, until moving to their new branch around 2010.
The building was originally more mid-century in design with TD Green Panels on the facade as shown in this image from about 1969.
The building was designed by Windsor architects Johnson-McWhinnie in 1959, and cost around $500,000 to build (about $4.6 million in 2021 dollars), and opening in 1960. Going back it appears that oddly, this corner was always vacant at least as far back as the early 1930s. Above are a pair of photos of the building under construction. That Tunnel to Detroit sign is pretty cool. Too bad that that one got lost along the way as well….
It’s a shame that this one got modernized and updated, as I think the original design was far more architecturally interesting that the reclad box that’s there today.
Thanks for sticking around the last little while, things got kind of busy with the book manuscript being submitted to the publisher in advance of the deadline, but we should be back on track here, and posting should return to a more regular schedule.
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