downtown renewal

Friday, July 26, 2013

Friday July 26, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 26, 2013

Heritage requirement a pain in the glass for Burrito Boyz

For SaleThe same Gore Park storefront that sat empty this time last year is now filled with daily diners, but the city’s focus is on the façade they say doesn’t fit with the character of the area.

Burrito Boyz, which opened in November 2012, was ordered to increase their glass frontage from 28 per cent to 80 per cent to obtain their establishment licence.

Leanne Dielschneider, who co-owns the business with Viktor Stosic, said they’re still paying off startup costs including more than $150,000 to renovate 66 King St. E. (which they rent). Extra façade work is an expense they hadn’t planned for.

Dielschneider, 27, said she and Stosic were aware of the glazing requirement (which falls under downtown heritage character guidelines) when they began renovations, but they were also trying to match the look of Burrito Boyz locations throughout Toronto.

She thought the city would be satisfied when they saw a bustling restaurant. Instead, she and Stosic received a notice two weeks after opening.

“I was told it was hard to open a business in Hamilton,” says Dielschneider, who grew up in Stoney Creek. “I was warned about that … It’s been a smooth ride other than this.”

Dielschneider said she understands the necessity of heritage policies, but finds the glazing issue insignificant compared to the benefits of having business in what was an abandoned space.

She pointed out other buildings within the Downtown Heritage Character Zone, which stretches along Gore Park from James to Wellington. (According to the city’s website, the zone guidelines are meant to be “a city building tool to protect built heritage resources and character in the downtown.”) (Source: The Hamilton Spectator)

January 8, 2008

It’s not too difficult, given the length of time consumed discussing the future of Hamilton’s Lister Block, to shrug one’s shoulders and wish they’d just tear the damn thing down. End the on going ups and downs we’ve all be reading and hearing about for the last 8 to 10 years and just get rid of it. Get rid of that decaying purple bricked building you’d see in a city like Detroit sitting in the heart of downtown Hamilton. It can’t be doing anything good in terms of attracting business to the downtown. Indeed, many have said it’s a symbol of the rotting downtown core and the lack of leadership on the part of city hall to get things moving. Time has run out! It’s do or die time!

Or is it?

First thing that comes to my mind is the urgency of all this. Beyond all the politics of lease rate increases and provincial grant money and deadlines for action there sits a rather ramshackle looking building to be sure, but it’s still a solid steel framed concrete and brick building of the 1920’s that really isn’t going to fall over if left alone for many more years.

What’s rather maddening, and completely underplayed in the media, are the owners of the building who have left it open to the elements and riff raff and have done nothing to keep it clean and respectable looking since taking ownership 10 or so years ago. For everyone who has been turned off by the site of the Lister Block only its owner, LIUNA, not city hall, carries the blame. If, by leaving it to look so decayed is the impetus to provoke action on the site, well good, the point has been made by LiUNA. Obviously, not even council is going to be duped into forking over loads more money to a landlord that has done a great job of making a gem of building look so awful.

We’re looking at several more months or years of talk and debate on the building’s future. The people of this city are stakeholders in the future of this building and it is up to the people and the council they elected to demand owners clean and maintain their properties. A few thousand dollars is really all that’s needed to properly board and polish up a once proud building in the downtown. It’s time to clean it up now if only to show that it cares about the image of downtown Hamilton.

A great Lister Block photo gallery by Lopix.

October 3, 2007

It was slated to go on the front page of the Spectator but the bosses didn’t think it was appropriate to illustrate an article about a Tim Horton’s going into City Hall. It’s not funny to stereotype Hamilton for it’s number of tattoo parlours, Money Marts, and Donut shops according to the higher ups. At least one person liked it:

July 25, 2007

I know it’s the summer when I draw back to back on local news — when little stories are the fodder for editorial cartoons, simply because of a dearth of news on the national and world fronts.

Today’s subject is the mulling over by city officials to make a bid for the 2015 Pan-American games. “Here we go again” — I utter defiantly against the predictable enthusiasm of my colleagues in this editorial page room. Just as the current Pan Am games are being played out in Brazil with virtually no television coverage and scant knowledge that they’re even going on a few bright lights in Hamilton are aching for the event to be played out here.

As with the city’s earlier bid for the Commonwealth Games the thinking seems to be more about a blatant opportunity to grab a lot of provincial and federal funds to fix up existing arenas and stadiums than really understanding the traditions, history and spirit of what’s behind certain international games.

At least with the second Commonwealth Games bid we were demonstrating perseverance by going after the games for a second time. Along the way we were learning what the Commonwealth games were all about, and became aware of the fact that the games had it’s origins with the first Empire Games being played in Hamilton back in the 1930’s. Our bids were not only just about fixing up our crumbling arenas, we had a genuine desire and connection to the games.

The politics of the bidding process screwed us, but at least we learned. More persistence could get us a Commonwealth Games sometime down the road.

But a Pan Am games bid? Now we’re back to the old federal/provincial cash grab without really knowing what we’re getting into.

I sketched the cartoon below but thought it really went beyond how I feel about the potential of hosting a big international games event. I’m not a bread not circus’ advocate, just suspicious of Hamilton’s tendency to put off fixing crumbling buildings and infrastucture with the hope that one day this city’s going to win the lottery.