Last Thursday night, on my way home from work, I was coming up McDougall when look what my eye see… The famous building eaters.
A neat old factory, was last used as a place called Rust Shield a subsidiary of Flex-N-Gate, a large US based Auto parts supplier.
Like may other jobs in our fair city, this plant too closed up shop. The facade of the old office section fronting McDougall hinted back towards the 1920’s.
You could see the lines where the build had been expanded and added on to over the years…
The building was big, stretching from McDougall to Windsor and taking up the better part of 3/4 of a city block.
This sign always caught my eye, the old sign for a long closed in Receiving Dock.
So as the sun set, and the weekend approached…
…I suspected the building wasn’t long for this world.
A look at the old Fire Map shows the site as being the Essex Wire Corporation, and the back half as being Martin Transportation. All of these buildings eventually were swallowed up. Anyone remember any other companies that were located there?
So with it being the weekend and all, I always have a suspicious feeling, and whadda ya know? 7:15 pm on a Sunday night and the crews are hard a work tearing down an old industrial building.
Hard too see here as I was shooting into the sun with a camera phone, but this asshat parked his pickup with a giant trailer in the bike lane and most of the southbound lane of McDougall, I suspect that wasn’t legal.
I wonder if everything was in order, permits, etc… I am always suspicious of weekend demolitions… Anyone with any connections to any one in Planning or Building at the City who could check if permits were issued? If you find out and don’t want to leave a comment, you can always send me an email about it and stay anonymous.
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lol
yeah, welcome Bruce. I get furious reading the Windsor Star comments, people are so stupid. I think I see where you would get that impression though. Everyone on that site is "you're on welfare.." this and "what a bunch of Eddiots" there.
It's cool here. Welcome aboard ;)
See Dave, how did I know you where on welfare? You are completely oblivious to what's happening around you. You're like the village idiot.
Anyway, I spoke to the guy who ran the place when he was liquidating the plant equipment. They gave away this 100,000+ sq.ft. building (bigger than Walmart) on two and a half acres for $350,000 to Elias and Vollmer because they were fed up with the city and moved operations to Mexico. When the fire happened across the street, they were struggling to keep the plant open with a half empty building. Then came the sprinkler requirement and they decided to cut their losses.
Elias bought it with private money. If banks financed these buildings, it wouldn't have gone that cheap. I lost a lot of money in this city too because of our sh-itty and useless business banking and credit union lenders.
Open your eyes. It's all over the city. GM invests $245m in the St. Catherines' Powertrain operation and decides to shut down the transmission plant in Windsor. GM no longer has a foothold in this city even though their world HQ is right across the river. Why do you think that is? We were once a powerhouse in the auto industry. What does Canada's Motor City have left now? WAP and Essex Engine?
No, it has nothing to do with municipal politics. Neither does the Ambassador bridge. Let's buy out and shut down Zalev's while we're at it. We must believe the city wants to attract investment and high paying industrial jobs because the media quotes political rhetoric as saying so, yet their actions say something else. Ask anyone who runs a business here and they'll tell you otherwise.
Chromoeshield was in there until 2008 when they closed it and moved out of the building
"See Dave, how did I know you where on welfare? You are completely oblivious to what’s happening around you"
^^^^^^^^^^^..........I don't know how to read this. I don't even know if it qualifies as a sentence or what....
Don't forget David.....there are something like 9 research and development facilities in the city as well. Don't forget the Nemak Windsor Aluminum plant as well.
As some may know, the old Kingsville Hotel (aka Fogcutter) located on Main near Division is getting a remarkable facelift. The building was erected in the late 1800s and is being renovated to resemble that incarnation. The new owner and contractors are doing a remarkable job given all the abuse and bad maintenance the building has endured over the years. This just goes to show you that older buildings have character and are worthy of rehabilitation. I think the town is quite excited about the redevelopment; something to be proud of!!
As the seller of the building to Elias and the former owner of Rustshield Plating, maybe I can give a more accurate history (although still from my point of view)
The Building was purchased by my father Peter Boscariol. Yes there was an overhead conveyor that took parts from being painted across the street to an oven on the 2nd floor of this building to be dried off. The oven was later converted by Chromeshield to an air make up filter house for the bldg.
I sold the business only to Flex-N-Gate in 1998. They were about to build a chrome plating facility for the sole purpose of taking over my capacity so I felt if you can't beat 'em, join 'em or at least sell to 'em.
This building was the metal finishing/polishing facility for Rustshield which then sold to Flex-N-Gate and became Chromeshield. No chrome plating was done on this site, only the polishing and buffing of bumpers before they were sent for chrome plating.
Flex-N-Gate also owns other Chrome platers Chrome Craft in Highland Park Michigan as well as A very, very large chrome plater plater in Vedersburg, Indiana.
As part of NAFTA, GM wanted to have its supplier build a plater in Mexico and Flex-N-Gate was the one. When the automotive industry tanked there was simply too much capacity. Later on they also bought another Stamping/chrome plating plant owned by American Bumper (which became Meridian automotive) in Ionia Michigan. When that happened, they consolidated further and Chrome Craft in Highland park also closed. Other competitors in this industry closed or downsized considerably sush as Kuntz plating, durachrome, General Plating. This business really didn't have a chance
I'm proud to have sold it off and given the employees another 10 years vs. one alternative to sell it to A.G.Simpson so they could simply close the plant and move the equip to Mexico back in '98.
We tried to come up with a use for the building rather than sell it. I stored boats there for a bit, spent a lot on getting the utilities down. At one point they were like $10,000 per month (boiler system had to run to make sure the sprinkler system kept working to protect the wooden roof). I got quotes for solar panel sections etc... But in the end, the best business plan for the bldg saw it only potentially breaking even and that was still a risk.
Good luck to Elias and Volmer. I wish them well in this climate and I'm happy to be able to focus on my next challenge
Very sad to see this one go as it was another one in the custer of old Industries served by the Essex Terminal Railway's old Factory Branch (The branch line basically ran along Hanna to serve industries such as the old Chrysler plant, Champion Spark Plug, Kelsey-Hayes, etc). The tracks were torn up in the early 90s, and many of the old industries have been torn down in the last 5-10 years.
The property that the old Chrysler plant sat on has been re-used by a generic retail/fast food development, but most of the other properties are now just vacant lots.
i really liked this building. I used to pass it everyday and admire it. Loved the windows and factory look of it all. Really sad to see that it came down.
I worked in the engineering office there in 1949 after graduating from highschool,Essex Wire at that time made wiring harnesses for Ford and employed a great number of women who assembled the harnesses on large assembly jigs, laying in one wire at a time.