Hard to believe that there is anywhere in this City you can’t easily find a parking space, however, as the Council Agenda from a few weeks back showed, there were a couple of applications for demolitions to create parking lots… Although I might be wrong, I doubt that these were denied…
The old Knights of Columbus hall on Goyeau near Gilles, across the street from the Bell Canada Offices.
Someone trying to cash in on parking for the hospital?
The two story building housing the former Pizzeria…
Destined to become a parking lot for the building next door. Again, I suppose it’s the shortage of parking in the Ellis and Ouellette area…
why doesn’t city council just pass a motion to level anything pre-1960? wouldn’t that be easier? besides, who needs those apartments above gio’s? ahhhhh….when i look to the far right in the last picture i see why the space is needed. sandra poo-poo-tello must need the space for her exceedingly large head. and i certainly see no potential for apartments at the KofC. i mean look at the thing, it’s not suitable for human occupancy in any way, all decreped and falling apart like it is and all that. betcha that sign out front stays though.
i sure hope my letter to the editor went thru lol
thanks andrew!
I see a great irony in this rush to create additional parking spaces in a year when almost everybody is complaining about sky-high gas prices they didn’t see coming and ruing the day they made the decision to purchase their gas-guzzling white elephants.
2008 definitely is a weird year to be creating parking space in a city that already has ample parking opportunities.
If buildings were being leveled to create parks or urban gardens I might think differently about the matter.
I saw Giovanni’s demise coming a mile away. The city messed up by letting that area get overdeveloped wthout restrictions for parking. Several older apartment buildings in the area without parking doesn’t help the matter. Then, there’s the highrise apartment buildings that don’t have at least as many parking spots as apartments. The office building next door won’t get rented without parking. The Giovanni building listing for peanuts, less than $200K didn’t help the matter. I bet those nice red brick houses next to the Medical Arts building will be on demolition list soon as the Medical Arts Centre can’t be rented without parking. How could the city allow that junky office building next to the glorious Medical Arts building be built without considering the impact of a parkingless Medical Arts building. What a mess the city made.
I posted this great piece from our friends at http://www.detroityes.com at http://www.scaledown.ca so I thought it especially appropriate for tis segment of the Photo Du Jour.
http://americancity.org/magazine/article/everything-is-going-to-be-alright-demolition-and-adaptive-reuse-in-detroit/
The city talks about density and creating areas for more people to live but yet they do the exact opposite. Don’t they realize that energy prices are not stopping anytime soon? I just heard on the radio today that our natural gas prices are going up 45%! Add that to the high price of gasoline and what are people going to do? They are going to want to live as close to work as possible.
The city should be looking to get business back downtown so that people will follow suit. But then again they will just talk and nothing will get done. Same Windsor mentality of 1969 is the same Windsor mentality of today.
I think but am not certain that there is a by-law in Windsor called the twenty steps by-law, that no driver in Windsor must be or can be, more than twenty walking, waddleling steps away from their vehicle to reach a business or government office and or their residence and that destination must be visiable in a direct line of sight from each parking space so that the driver does not get confused or lost, malls not included because they want you to drive for hours looking for thee closest spot, makes them look busy.
Somebody ought to give Prince Eddie and the gang down at City Hall copies of James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency” followed by a pop quiz on Peak Oil, Global Warming, and Sustainable Development. If anybody fails the quiz we put them in a makeshift jail in front of City Hall and invite people to throw rotten tomatoes at them. Does it sound like a plan?
Hell, forget a makeshift jail. Just do what the pilgrims used to do and put them in one of those wooden arm and neck shackles in front of city hall for a week on and throw rotten tomatoes at them. Hahaha.
I’ve got a stupid question……
What do all these properties have in question? They’re either not occupied or have limited occupancy. I noticed that the Bank Of Montreal building had a For Lease sign in the window. Anyone know how long it was empty?
So what do you do with a unoccupied building? Dump money into it and pay taxes on it just to keep preservationists happy? Maybe spend a ton on money on remodeling the interior that you know is lost because you’ll never recapture it at prevailing rental rates?
I’m all for adaptive reuse, but somewhere along the line private property rites have to be considered too……
Agreed Doug, but parking lots to me aren’t the best use of the land.
The bank of Montreal closed I think two years ago when they moved to a new location about 1 mile south. The bank put it for sale and it was purchased by the owner of the stripmall.
A half hearted attempt was made to lease it, and then down it came…
I actually played a gig in this knights of columbus hall years ago i believe. We booked the space (pretty cheap) to have 3-4 bands play an all ages show, since there were no places to hold local shows.
But who want to actually go out of the house and actually DOING things anyways?
Mike
Well if you do decide to go out, at least you’ll have somewhere to park 🙂
no i won’t andrew. if i can’t drive my car directly inside of a buisness then i’m not going.
You can thank Pupa-anti-history again for sticking another knife in the back of the preservationist cause as Ontario just allowed Union Gas a 34% increase for natural gas from Today’s Windsor Star. Older buildings are poorly insulated and mostly heated by natural gas boilers, which means landlords and homeowners with older buildings will be more inclined to demolish older buildings for newer, better insulated ones or parking lots because it’s just not cost effective to preserve or covering up nice brickwork with junky vinyl siding backed with styrofoam or stucco to reduce the heating bill. Raising rents in Windsor to cover these losses is just not possible in a city with this kind of vacancy rate. I predict an exponential increase in demolitions now.
Speaking of parking lots, the old Tiger stadium is now undergoing the wrecking ball. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080709/NEWS01/80709023
Walked from the Ren Centre to Chene Park Sunday and blocks upon blocks of parking lots still remain with no new development after the demolition of all those nice old brick warehouses.
hey andrew, i beleive the K of C is gone now. i was driving down giles the other afternoon looked down goyeau and saw the death fences…….but no building.
i didn’t have time to stop and turn around to take a pic, but you might want to go take a picture for your “empty lots” folder.
sheesh, that didn’t take long at all now did it?
Demos are happening pretty fast all across the city. Even the Future Shop building across from Devonshire Mall is being demolished. I don’t think it’s even 10 years old, and they don’t even need more parking lots in that area.
FYI It’s not hospital parking
The Future Shop buildimg was not demolished but renovated, is now and has been for a couple of years another Shopers Drugmart.
Maybe they could re-do the Shoppers downtown? What a gross place that is, along with Dirt Basics grocery store.