You know, it’s shit like this, and land owners like Ashok Sood (who FYI, owns Champion Products Corp) who don’t give a rat’s ass about Windsor or our history, who make this City and undesirable place to live. Assholes and incompetence is the reason there is a giant hole in the historic heart of Walker Road in old Walkerville.
The historic Seagrave Building on Walker Road (which was featured here and here), was built around 1905, and in this building the first motorized fire trucks in Canada were built.
The city fucked up once again. This building was listed on the Heritage Inventory, and as such it should by law be afforded a 60 day waiting period before a demolition permit is issued. Guess what? It wasn’t. Some moron at City Hall issued the permit without batting an eye.
The same thing happened in November 2006 with the Walker Farm Manager’s house.
Following the Walker Farm House fiasco, I raised a stink and I received this reply:
Please note that the Ontario Heritage Act has been amended so that
properties that are considered for heritage designation must give Council
60 days notice of the intention to designate. After intention is given,
Council must make a decision whether to designate the building or allow
demolition.
Here is the relevant portion of the Ontario Heritage Act – See Section
27(3) – for the 60 day delay part.
Restriction on demolition, etc. If property included in the register under subsection (1.2) has not been
designated under section 29, the owner of the property shall not demolish
or remove a building or structure on the property or permit the demolition
or removal of the building or structure unless the owner gives the council
of the municipality at least 60 days notice in writing of the owner’s
intention to demolish or remove the building or structure or to permit the
demolition or removal of the building or structure. 2006, c. 11, Sched. B,
s. 11 (2).*We have unfortunately issued a demolition permit without following this
procedure. In the future, please ensure that if a building is considered
for heritage designation, that (the heritage planner) be notified and, under no
circumstances, issue the permit unless Council approves the demolition.
…*
Good to see that the city can’t even follow it’s own policies.
I have honestly had it up to here with the City and their piss poor job of doing anything.
The Mayor of Monmouth summed it up better than I ever could in his excellent post here.
No advance warning at all. It was obviously done on the hush. There is one exception to this. Rick Gruber who is the area Building Inspector rushed out today to halt the demolition because even though there was a permit to raise the building, there was no permit to close Walker Road. In fact, the sidewalk is the only thing which separates the building from Walker Road. Witnesses said that a man riding a bike almost got clocked by falling bricks. Four thirty rolled around. Quittin time for city employees and Jones fired up the beast and started tearing the old girl down. Right in the middle of rush hour. One reason…They rented the rig from Amicone for a tight time window and the clock was ticking. Within two hours the building was really history. Ashok Sood who owns that property along with most of the 8 and 900 blocks of Walker Road stood on the opposite side of Walker to witness his planned demolition. He is planning to attract a “Big Box” operation on the East Side of Walker.
– Mayor of Monmouth
You know what? Fuck you, and fuck your big box. Enjoy your vacant lot, and rest assured that I will fight any attempt by you to redevelop your holdings for big box use.
Special thanks for the photo above to Chris Edwards, who went back after me and caught the demise on camera.
His series of photos can be found here: http://walkerville.com/seagraves/
This is unacceptable, and fucking pathetic. Whoever issued this permit in contravention of the Ontario Heritage Act should lose their fucking job.
I’ll keep everyone posted if I learn anything.
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Holy crap!!! I was literally walking past that place the other day recalling to myself your post on its history from a few months back. Demolition is the last thing I expected to see two days later!
Let this fellow know how you feel about what he's done to windsor, a city that has allowed him to build a successful business:
ashok@championproducts.com
And one more thing. In Chris Edwards' photo here (http://walkerville.com/seagraves/content/IMG_1988_large.html)... that has to be one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. It's like the building eater has been personified into some kind of flesh ripping animal.
I was just down there the other day...whom ever allowed this to happen, should face some serious trouble.
This kind of shit is just not acceptable, specially since this landmark was designated a heritage property.
WTF, that Ashok Sood stood there watching it all happen with a GRIN on his face.....I will NEVER go to whatever he plans on building on that site. Hope it too is burned to the ground.
Here is the letter I forwarded to him....Thanks Windsor Lover for the address!!!
Dear Mr Soot, err…Sood however you spell it!!
This is just a quick note to VOICE my DISGUST with your recent decision to DESTROY one of Windsor’s Heritage Properties. WHO in the hell do you think you are? That was sneaky and conniving allowing for the demolition of the Seagrave Building on Walker Rd. I think what you’ve allowed to take place is selfish, underhanded, and thoughtless. That building played a significant part in our history, and could have served many purposes if you would get your greedy mind off of those dollar signs. Rumour has it you envision a BIG BOX complex on this property…NEWS FLASH..we have enough of those, further more I will NOT be visiting any of your business’s, and will advise anyone I know of the same. Speaking of dollar signs, I DO HOPE that you are fined tremendously, for moving forward with the demolition without the approval of council. I’d also love to see you loose ownership of any other heritage property which you unfortunately may own.
Just my two cents..
Ross
Ross... One quick note - Sood can not be fined because the city issued the demolition permit.
The permit should not have been issued without Council's approval, but is anything shocking anymore?
Maybe if anyone is truly outraged, you should write or call your councilor and ask why a building listed on the heritage inventory was issued a demolition permit in contravention of the Ontario Heritige Act, without giving 60 days notice as required?
I'm certain the property owner got he wanted, and he could care less what any of us think. Plus no amount of anger will bring the building back. :(
So, send a quick email to your councilors, and demand that this be investigated, and that the person who failed to follow procedure be punished. Also keep your eyes open. If any redevelopment plans come up in this stretch of Walker Rd. be ready to fight it at council.
I am as disgusted as anyone else about this but here is the next problem. Something will go up on this site but what? A towing yard, or a tracktor trailor depot or worse? The city is at huge fault here so now it is time for them to step up to the plate and work with local citizens to replace the building with an appropriate development in keeping with the charm and history of Walkerville. Every detail has to be scrutinized. No stucko but bricks, architechtural relevance etc. This means real planning with real heighbourhood input. This has to made into an opportunity and all of us have to ride the city like a goat to get er done. I would call on councillor's Halberstadt and Valentinis to start and perhaps even Thom Hunt who, curiously, lives on Monmouth Road to get the ball rolling. Keep the noise up people. Don't let any one city official or department forget how stupid and criminal this act was. Another point. This happened so out of the blue that the Windsor Star didn't even catch it. Chris, I and others were there shooting the event from beginning to end. There were no reporters from any media there. Sood did what he wanted knowing full well that what he did was wrong. Premeditated strategy. More and more of these guys are starting to realize that bi-passing protocal is a cinch with no re-percussions for them. They have to pay now by following up with doing what is right and under the heavy hand of the Planning department and the local community.
I know I am going to get some flack for this one, but Historic building or not, this building was beginning to be more then a problem. It has on record been set on fire recently (more then once), and numerous people have seen young teens destroying the place, and doing other illegal activity. I know we are loosing lots of Windsor history recently, but if we do not clean up things that are causing these or other major problems, then we may not have a Windsor anymore. I feel that just as bad as all of you that this building is gone, but you can not save all of the buildings in this city. The guy who owns these properties has a right to make new industry, and other items, for the betterment of the community as a whole. There is large amount of jobs that can be created from new items going up, in and around that area, that has not seen any major job creation for a few decades. Be thankful for the buildings that are staying in that area, just like the Market Square, which moved out of its downtown location to help the city with its expansion of the Casino & also Court House system that was falling into pieces, and not large enough for our entire community. If this guy has a dream about creating jobs in our area, then let him help us, and create money for jobs, save other buildings in our area that need to be helped as well. We all have to take a little to get a lot some times, and this may be a start in the right direction.
Ian, who's to blame for the mess around Windsor and the "illegal" activity around Windsor? Carpet baggers like A-sh-it. Maybe, someone wanted to do something with restoring the property, but A-sh-it wanted too much money for it. I don't recall seeing "for lease" signs on it. If teens are breaking in, Asood should have put alarms around it. If there was a fire, who is responsible for allowing it to happen? Obviously, if you have vacant buildings lying around and don't set up any security, people are going to be breaking in and destroying the place.
It all starts with useless Councilors like Valentinis, who never return your messages or you can get a hold of when you notice vacant buildings and have an issue with it such as the landowner not following city bylaws like having the same old graffitti on them for several years. Once graffitti remains on the building, you know it will attract a lot of other problems.
They could have done a number of things with it such as loft conversions. Toronto allows brownfield sites like this to be converted all the time--you just have to add another layer cement to the floor and cap the land surrounding the building with a layer of cement (which is great to put cars on for parking.
What kind of jobs were created from this anyway? They rented a demolition crew for a week. Great. A lot of money there. Will anything other than a fenced parking lot for trucks be put up there? Nope, bad area for big box. No one's gonna sign a prelease for a big box there. Such a dream isn't realistic. Asood is crazy. The area isn't even enough for a big box. Big boxes work in the south end of Windsor/Walker Rd. where the land is already cleared and still plentiful. It's not even economical to do here. You're not gonna see anything better than what's surrounding that area, which is probably why it'll end up being a fenced parking lot for trucks. Truck parking lots surrounding a historical district doesn't better the community.
Ian,
While I agree that development is key to rebuilding Windsor, there are ways to go about it without destroying heritage buildings to make way for big box with sub-par wages. It will be a sad day, when all that comes out of this is a strip mall, which the old building could have been renovated to hold. In Montreal this summer, I saw the creative re-use of old buildings, in which they used the historic frame of the building and created a big-box grocery store as well as water distribution center.
and to Andrew. Keep up the good work, hopefully we can prevent this from happening again.