One Young (née Mayfair Hotel) | 5 fl | Complete

[clasher]

I feel I should point out that that ugly main floor facade was in fact load bearing, so there was little that could be done about it. Original plans had called for replacing the brick with windows, but not possible if they're load bearing.

That's not necessarily true. You can't replace the brick entirely with windows, but you could do a combination of windows and new structural beams that are strong enough to support the existing (or even additional) loads. Cinderblock is definitely not the strongest building material, and it's entirely possible they could have been replaced with a metal / reinforced concrete framework with openings for windows.

A quick Google search tells me that the compression strength for reinforced concrete is, at minimum, twice as strong as cinderblocks, and the upper limit of reinforced concrete's compression strength is much, much higher. Steel beams have a bending resistance over ten times greater than the compression strength of cinderblocks. So, it's certainly plausible that reinforced concrete pillars topped with steel beams could provide significantly more structural strength than the original walls.

Well that sounds great in theory but how to you support the walls when the foundations below grade are damaged and at risk of collapsing. It doesn't matter what you replace the first storey walls with if the ground can't carry the load it's still gonna come down one day. The lack of a stable foundation coupled with other beams being undersized on the above floors really add all kinds of dangerous unpredictability to the equation. Without knowing what the ground around the foundations is like it would be impossible to stabilize and support the facade let alone the whole building, but I'm no expert so IDK.

As I posted earlier I'd take any demolition over the loss of lives in an effort to save what amounts to a pile of bricks. Lots of construction workers die every year and few people seem to care or realize... why make it more dangerous for those people? Yes, it's a shame the facade can't be saved and yes there have been poor choices made in the past WRT heritage buildings in Kitchener but I think the right call was made here.  I doubt anyone that wants to see it saved would be willing to go into that building and start jack-hammering away the bricks and welding in gussets and whatnot to try and save it.

Here's the progress of the demo so far:


There was a couple dozen people watching and lots of people taking pictures too.