The picture above was taken in 2006, sometime later, someone thought that this building didn’t look good enough, so what’s one to do?…
So this kind grey skim coat went up on the place, I was expecting it to get the stucco treatment, but it never really did… After the skim coat, work wrapped up and this is what it’s been like for the last 2 years at least.
It’s a shame, another nice old brick building ruined. If only our planning department would restrict this kind of “upgrade”.
What kind of an upgrade is this? It looks like the building’s sprouted out of the road, very unnatural, urban jungle-y and painful to look at. Should’ve just covered it with Boston Ivy if they thought it looked so ugly. At least it would’ve looked interesting then.
Ick. That’s a good description, Steve. It’s like the side walk sprouted a tumour. (Eets naht a toomur!)
Boston Ivy is an interesting suggestion. The old brickwork wasn’t great in some sections (especially on the front, at the top of the short section) but most of it was fine.
Andrew, come one! They are just following what city hall does with most of their buildings; grey or beige! I’m expecting there to be some nice metal sidig to be added some time.
Cripes, do people have no respect for their neighbours?
Wow, very ugly.
the brick work looks mismatched like mentioned but! at least it seems to match the ajoining house
I wonder what the guy sitting on the balcony thinks of the finished product heheh
Someone thought next door was a great place to open … another variety store?
A bright light indeed!
With its obsession with stucco, Windsor is starting to resemble a village with mud huts.
One of the things we missed after moving West was brick buildings. Despite a brick factory in Medicine Hat years ago, brick is not common in Calgary. It seems a pity to cover any brickwork and to cover it with modge-podge should be considered criminal in Windsor.
Boston Ivy won’t do much harm as long as they keep it under control, English Ivy on the other hand.. Plus brickwork is what our society was built on and it looks amazing. It’s wonderful to look at brick walls and think jeez at one point someone spent hard hours stacking every single one of those bricks.. Nobody seems to appreciate hard work or history at all anymore.
i hope they paint it pink and put some “accent diamonds’… that will make it look as good as this one!
https://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ll=42.318262,-83.013681&spn=0.002424,0.004823&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=42.318262,-83.013681&panoid=Ri26vXpc0pg3UEkDRg6obA&cbp=12,25.97,,0,1
To windsorshane: I love how well that one blends with the 22nd century strip mall surrounding it………
Can’t they just leave the brick alone? Its not hurting anybody. Couldn’t they at least paint it? This skim coat stucco thing is horrible, will not stand up in the future and is not easily undone. Whoever did this deserves a swift kick to the shins.
It is unfortunate. There are ‘rules’ governing signs and things like that but there appears to be nothing to regulate or guide the general appearance of structures. Many of the old brick buildings have either been demolished or sit in disguise covered in stucco or tasteless siding. There are examples of great face-lifts but these are few when compared to the number of failures.
Would it be possible for the city and BIA to band together to provide standards and guidelines and perhaps provide financial incentives to renovate, repoint or re-face brick buildings in distress in order to preserve the look and feel (and uniformity) of the business districts? That would also be good for the bricklayer and mason trades. In the end, the whole neighbourhood would be more attractive and thus entice commerce.
There are bylaws in the city that don’t allow unpainted concrete block to face a street, so it is possible to govern what facade types are acceptable. Stucco when used properly in conjunction with other materials isn’t terrible, how people just blanket an entire building is however. I’ve done work in other municipalities that limit they types of materials, even the colour of paint that is permitted. I feel those laws are a little out of hand. What could be done is to set a by-law stating that existing brick or stone masonry may not be covered in excess of __% without review by a facade committee or something along those lines. People always argue that “you can’t tell me what to do with my property” but municipalities do all the time. They force owners to provide a minimum number of parking stalls, they restrict the use of a building, etc. etc. It is very possible to have some facade standards… its just making sure they are not too restrictive where people become too inundated with a sort of “facade police” such as in Nagara on the Lake.
last time i drove by it looked like they were getting ready to stucco. don’t worry though, they saved the “1922” plaque at the top of the building…and at a quick glance it looked like it had been painted blue.
All I can say about stucco: This ain’t LA!