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Sacred Heart Convent
#16
The convent is part of a complex of buildings intimately associated with a sizeable Polish community that clustered in that part of Kitchener. It’s as much a monument to those people as it is a piece of architecture.

When I was in high school in Kitchener in the 1960’s, a substantial chunk of my class was comprised of the Polish kids from the Ahrens Street corridor. It was neat to feel their presence in what was not at the time a very cosmopolitan city.

Often I see here reviews of new building renders to the effect: “Meh, it’s nothing special, but I don’t hate it.” A common assessment of old buildings is: “It’s nothing special – there’s better stuff, so it might as well come down.” When a lot of the former get built, while at the same time a lot of the latter get razed, you end up with a bland urban landscape.

It’s not enough to place all bets on a new progressive framework without maintaining in place pieces of the mosaic that show how the city has evolved. We all visit the world’s great cities to see places that have both a future and a past.

It’s pretty much a truism now that Kitchener’s “brick and beam” buildings are the aspirational workplace environments for the innovation sector. But those industrial relics weren’t always so treasured. To wit, try to find them in Waterloo. Sometimes it takes out-of-the-mainstream initiative to prevent the “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone” syndrome.

I’m told that the Region has shown interest in adaptively re-using the convent as affordable housing, but that the Diocese is intent for its own reasons on pressing on with the application for demolition. So maybe Heritage Kitchener’s move to designate is in fact an out-of-the-mainstream initiative that will buy time – time to maintain what may later be valued as a modest contributing piece of urban fabric.
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#17
(04-13-2015, 08:35 PM)eizenstriet Wrote: The convent is part of a complex of buildings intimately associated with a sizeable Polish community that clustered in that part of Kitchener. It’s as much a monument to those people as it is a piece of architecture.

When I was in high school in Kitchener in the 1960’s, a substantial chunk of my class was comprised of the Polish kids from the Ahrens Street corridor. It was neat to feel their presence in what was not at the time a very cosmopolitan city.

Often I see here reviews of new building renders to the effect: “Meh, it’s nothing special, but I don’t hate it.” A common assessment of old buildings is: “It’s nothing special – there’s better stuff, so it might as well come down.” When a lot of the former get built, while at the same time a lot of the latter get razed, you end up with a bland urban landscape.

It’s not enough to place all bets on a new progressive framework without maintaining in place pieces of the mosaic that show how the city has evolved. We all visit the world’s great cities to see places that have both a future and a past.

It’s pretty much a truism now that Kitchener’s “brick and beam” buildings are the aspirational workplace environments for the innovation sector. But those industrial relics weren’t always so treasured. To wit, try to find them in Waterloo. Sometimes it takes out-of-the-mainstream initiative to prevent the “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone” syndrome.

I’m told that the Region has shown interest in adaptively re-using the convent as affordable housing, but that the Diocese is intent for its own reasons on pressing on with the application for demolition. So maybe Heritage Kitchener’s move to designate is in fact an out-of-the-mainstream initiative that will buy time – time to maintain what may later be valued as a modest contributing piece of urban fabric.

The Diocese has withdrawn its application for demolition and Heritage Kitchener has deferred the application to designate, pending further discussions to see if a mutually agreeable solution can be found.  On the City's side, that means finding a way to re-purpose and designation of the building.
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#18
(04-13-2015, 08:35 PM)eizenstriet Wrote: It’s pretty much a truism now that Kitchener’s “brick and beam” buildings are the aspirational workplace environments for the innovation sector. But those industrial relics weren’t always so treasured. To wit, try to find them in Waterloo.

The Bauer shops, the Seagram lofts, the Barrel Warehouse, the Button Factory, the Waterloo Hotel, the Huether Hotel, the Times Square building, the old Print Shop on Bridgeport, Sole restaurant, Re/Max Offices. Do we need any more?
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#19
Both the demo and heritage application's have been dropped

http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5555...-building/
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#20
My understanding was that municipalities here compile lists of "non-designated properties" of heritage interest because the full heritage designation process is very onerous, and that allows the city to prevent demolition if it chooses to.
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#21
(04-13-2015, 10:35 PM)mpd618 Wrote: My understanding was that municipalities here compile lists of "non-designated properties" of heritage interest because the full heritage designation process is very onerous, and that allows the city to prevent demolition if it chooses to.


It gives the City 50 additional days (60 in total) to process the demolition purchase.
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#22
(04-13-2015, 08:54 PM)BuildingScout Wrote:
(04-13-2015, 08:35 PM)eizenstriet Wrote: It’s pretty much a truism now that Kitchener’s “brick and beam” buildings are the aspirational workplace environments for the innovation sector. But those industrial relics weren’t always so treasured. To wit, try to find them in Waterloo.

The Bauer shops, the Seagram lofts, the Barrel Warehouse, the Button Factory, the Waterloo Hotel, the Huether Hotel, the Times Square building, the old Print Shop on Bridgeport, Sole restaurant, Re/Max Offices. Do we need any more?

We're lucky to have what we have, but we've lost quite a bit of the Waterloo buildings that could have been converted to 'brick and beam' had the timing been better.
- All the industrial buildings where Waterloo Town Square is built
- The Seagram Distillery building (conveniently burnt down when the fire suppression system was disconnected after the plant closed)
- The Labatt's brewery
- The Ontario Table and Chair building
- buildings within the Canbar and Sunshine complexes
- there are also a few modern infill projects that have been built on some of the former industrial land in the Uptown

Waterloo didn't have quite the same massing as the warehouses and factories in Kitchener, so there was less chance for the buildings to survive over the long term.
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#23
(04-14-2015, 02:02 PM)nms Wrote: We're lucky to have what we have, but we've lost quite a bit of the Waterloo buildings that could have been converted to 'brick and beam' had the timing been better.

- The Seagram Distillery building (conveniently burnt down when the fire suppression system was disconnected after the plant closed)

- The Ontario Table and Chair building

These ones are sorely missed. I wish we had kept them. I think the distillery was given heritage protection and hence it "accidentally" caught fire. Had the city stepped in and bought the lands at fair (i.e. empty lot) value this would not have happened.


Quote:- All the industrial buildings where Waterloo Town Square is built
- The Labatt's brewery

I don't recall anything worth saving in the Carling/Labatt's complex. Nor do I see anything valuable in the Uptown. Of course WTS was such an eye sore that anything would have been preferable over converting Uptown into a parking lot. Funny how city council was obsessed with the housing situation near the universities while completely ignoring the destruction of Uptown.

Quote:- buildings within the Canbar and Sunshine complexes

Hmm... Nothing worth of heritage protection but it would have been nice to preserve at least one of the buildings in that site. In this case the city did purchase one of said structures. I'm not familiar with how and when it divested itself from this property.
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