880 Ouellette, due south of the Main Branch of the Windsor Public Library, stands an one of the few unaltered mid-century office blocks in the city. While it looks a little shabby and dirty these days, she’s still a nice looking building. Although, how she looks today, isn’t how she was planned…
From the Windsor Star – December 10, 1964:
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NEW BUILDING – This is an architect’s sketch drawing
of the proposed $1,000,000 office building to be erected
in the 800 block on Ouellette Ave., with construction
scheduled to start in March and completion early in 1966.
The 60 by 80 foot building will contain nine stories above
ground level with decked parking at the rear.
It was built by a group of Windsor businessmen, who called their group Folis Enterprises Ltd. To build the building, newspaper reports said the Carpenter’s Hall at 892 Ouellette and the house immediately to the north, opposite Anderson’s Funeral Home would have to be demolished.
At the rear a decked parking area for 70 vehicles was planned, although I suspect it was never built.
The building was know be called “Corporate House” and was designed by Windsor architect William Hilliker. Hilliker was also the architect for some parts of St. Clair College along with the provincial health lab on Huron Church which is scheduled for demolition later this year.
Thanks for the post Andrew!
now i have a question for you. do you remember the set of photo’s i sent you a while ago that i found on boatnerd, that were shot from Detroit, most likely in the 70’s? They showed our waterfront and railyards, some had the boblo boat in them some had the fire boat spraying water? anyways….if i’m not wrong, you can see this building in the background except it’s all black panels instead of white. If you’ve lost the pix I can send them again if you like.
thanks again!
Not sure which photo you mean. But are you sure that wasn’t the Viscount, Aaron? Sometimes distance is deceiving in those types of shots.
Not sure what is up there now but in 1991 the top floor there is where I and many others over the years wrote our amateur radio licence exam – at the Dept. of Communications Windsor office. This agency was rolled in with the creation of Industry Canada and I’m not sure what sort of frequency spectrum type operations are still in that building, or in Windsor at all. It was also the Hong Kong Bank of Canada on the main floor at that time as well. I wonder if that great little lower-level restaurant in there is still operational.
If my memory is correct, the building housing the Provincial Health Lab, at 3400 Huron Church Road, originally was the muncipal office for Sandwich West. The township left the site when the Windsor annexation of 1966 put the property within the city limits. Sited, back on a well-treed lot, it was a very attractive building, especially at night, with its wall of windows lit amongst the trees. The current gaudy blue and white paint job doesn’t do the architect’s vision justice.
Until renovations in the 90’s the panels in this building were black. It was a much better look.
I remember that basement restaurant a few years ago. It was Coca Cola themed. I went back and checked it a few months ago. The restaurant is long gone and it’s all locked up and nothing new was put in its place.
I wonder why it’s been called the Falom building for the past decade or longer? Anyone know who Falom was or what his significance was to this city?
Probably a investment or property management firm… Like the Candrel Building.
Interesting… I don’t remember it being black, but I didn’t move to Windsor until 1989, so I may have been before…
John – it definitly wasn’t the Viscount. it’s clearly standing alone in the background with it’s black top and this building is casting a shadow on the large apartment building next to it. i think the pictures were taken from something that doesn’t exist anymore near the corner of Navarr pl and Rivard st in Detroit. There is a large, stone apartment building at Jefferson and Rivard in butting into the photo, so the angle puts the Viscount way off to the side as well. seems like it may have been black based on Joe’s comment though. If you’d like the pix and you still have my e-mail address let me know and i’ll shoot them over to you. i lost you e-mail when our server crashed for the 12th time.
I like that it’s called “Corporate House” — very British. A few buildings here in Toronto retain that kind of name — something “house” — but not many.
i applied for a cb licence on one of the top floors way back in 1974 and again in 1090 wrote the exam for my amatuer radio licence i think the antennas are still on the roof and as far as the Viscount goes that was down the next block south of the hospital where that parking lot at giles and ouellette on the east side of ouellette
Hi Andrew,
I was the Building Manager for 880 Ouellette (formerly FALOM Office Tower) from 1996 – 2008 when FALOM sold to AKNO Enterprises. It has since been renamed AKNO Office Tower. I have seen several different designs for the building over the years including plans to convert it to condominiums and in an early rendition it was to be the centerpiece in a shopping mall. An office for Industry Canada – Spectrum Management (formerly the Dept. of Communications) is still in the building. AKNO purchased the building in August 2008 after their purchase of the Canada Building (374 Ouellette) with plans to renovate both buildings extensively….your guess is as good as mine as to when that might happen. FYI, AKNO also purchased the old Book Building in Detroit which has been completely closed down and stands idle in darkness barely visible from this side of the river.
P.S. I really enjoy this site. Keep up the great work!
Jeff,
Thanks for the post, and for the info. I didn’t realize that AKNO purchased the Book Building as well. So far so good, it looks like they are taking care of the Canada Building.
Jeff, How are you? Hope all is well.
Andrew, it looks like AKNO may have bitten off more than they could chew. The Falom Office Tower is for sale and rumour has it that a Group of Local Dr’s are considering purchasing the building and turning floors 2-4 into medical offices and relocating the 4 current tenants on those floors up to floors 5-7 (which should be no problem since one is empty and the other two have 5 vacant units. The building has gone from full tenancy when Casilco owned it and Jeff Managed it, to 45% currently, due in part to the economy but mainly to the noticeable drop in standards from September 2008 onwards. They blames it on the current staff but for an investor who has not really even been at the building since they bought it, or seen by most of the tenants until just now when they are in the midst of trying to sell, maybe that has something to do with it…do ya think?
We were shocked when someone drew the Book Building in Detroit to our attention and how it was handled and what was promised and what was actually delivered or more accurately not delivered. Seeing some of the same being repeated in Windsor was not sitting well with many of the remaining tenants. Being told in September 2010 that everyone is being evicted and can move to the Canada Bidg. due to health & safety concerns and necessary repairs and upgrades and then 2 weeks later after realizing that no one wanted to move there the story changed and everyone could stay. What happened to the health & safety issues? What is going to happen to the necessary repairs and modifications? The pending sale will be a welcome and timely change and will keep a wonderful building afloat and hopefully thriving as it did previously. The Canada Bldg. isn’t fairing much better from what a couple of tenants, one current and one that has already moved out, shared with us. Let’s hope and pray that both buildings gets bought and brought back to life since they seem to be on life support currently. Why a Vancouver based company run by one person with a full time career would consider purchasing three buildings so far away from them and then just leave them makes no sense to a rational, logical person.
If the building is sold, maybe these new owners will actually remember to remove the foot of snow and ice on the sidewalk attached to their overflow parking lot. It was never an issue until Akno purchased it.
The original black panels were so indicative of the International style this building represents. I always admired the scale and massing of this building and the current state it’s in now is rather sad. It definitely looked better in it’s original facade.