Charles St GRT terminal redevelopment

[ijmorlan]

The problem with turning the existing building into a usable space is that it's falling apart. Multiple roof leaks, the basement is flooded, there are broken taps that have been leaking water since it closed, the elevators are pretty sketchy and the inside has been more or less gutted (everything from toilets to seating to lights being removed). Unless someone nice donates a lot of money to fix that up, I can tell you that the Region of Waterloo has no desire to fix anything in the building at this point.

Do you have some insight into how this happens?

I mean some of it I understand; if the roof is leaking, that makes sense because putting off maintenance could be a reasonable thing to do if the building will no longer be used. But broken taps? Shouldn’t somebody have turned off the water to any non-operational fixtures? I mean, who is paying the water bill? And if things have been removed, it seems to me that shouldn’t have happened without Council explicitly voting that the building should be considered surplus to requirements. For that matter, even putting off the roof maintenance should only be done if the building has been positively determined to be surplus.