Another One Bites The Dust: Hamilton's Lister Block
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01. 8.08
Hamilton, Ontario should be a great city; it has geography (a great location close to the border, a great big harbour that is now quite beautiful) topography (a nice "mountain" that keeps it from being boring) a major university and great transportation connections. It should be one of those creative places that Richard Florida goes on about.
Instead it is a legacy of bad planning, stupid governance and absolutely no sense of history, topped off by City Council's decision to back out of a deal to save the Lister Block by renting space in it. Not only that, they want to send back the $ 7 million that the Province of Ontario kicked in to save the building.
City Council says that it does not make economic sense to pay the rent required to pay for the renovation; that's because rents are cheap in Hamilton, they usually are in dumps. If City Council wants to have a Hamilton where the downtown is vibrant and where people want to live and work, they have to put a little money into it.
But then the building is owned by the Labourers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) and the unions get what they want in Hamilton, always have. If they say it is more costly to renovate than to build new, then of course it is true, even though the Hamilton Region Branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario has a report from an outside consultant showing that the building is salvageable at a reasonable cost, and that the advisory panel made up non-partisan experts and reporting to the Ontario Government came to a similar conclusion.
But then, we are talking about Hamilton. ::Spectator
Pictures from Isaac-CC, who describes the Lister Block:
The Lister Block was erected by the Joseph Lister Estate at the corner of King William and James Streets in Hamilton. The original 1886 building burnt down in a violent fire in 1923, and the present building was designed by Bernard H. Prack and was erected during 1923-1924.
When the building was occupied, the four upper floors housed offices, while the fifth floor was occupied by professional tenants, such as physicians, dentists, chiropractors, and beauty specialists. The sixth floor was occupied by offices.During the 1970's , with the completion of the new city hall the focus of civic and cultural activity began to shift from the Lister Block, causing financial difficulties for its tenants. By the early part of the 1990s, eviction notices were issued to all the tenants of the Lister Building. Since then it has remained abandoned, in a constant state of deterioration.
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I am from Buffalo, NY. There is a lot of revitalization in the city. including condos being built in downtown and on the waterfront. Good sign.
Can Ontario for a sale or peg the building historic? In NYS if it is historic it is harder to tear stuff down. How about a preservation status or an example of how to rehab for eco friendly apt by university students? You got to get the state/province to back it.
Great, so the Lister will keep rotting, the school board will be torn down -and moved to the suburbs. Luckily city hall is being renovated but they still want to tear it down.
Yet another case of the only way to get around heritage legislation and the will of the citizenry -- demolition by neglect. The Lister Block is a beautiful building - especially when contrasted with the HORRIBLE Jackson Square "look honey, I bricked up the downtown" mess on the west side of that intersection. Despite city bylaws regarding security and weather resistance of buildings, LIUNA prefers to have about half of the windows gaping open and easy access to the interior of the building. LIUNA has even gone as far as to refuse to sell the building to a Toronto developer who thinks that Hamilton is worth saving. It's time to deconstruct the amalgamation of Hamilton to allow the city to do what it needs without having the opinion of people from rural Flamborough count as equal to those of us who choose to live in dense urban areas. There are two ways to change Hamilton - hope for a buyout (LIUNA's method) or to move in and work with what's there and make gentrification happen by sheer dint of will.
Guess which kind of Hamiltonian I am.
As a post script, I continue to have faith that Mayor Fred will do good things - he needs to know that people in Hamilton, especially the lower city, support him in his attempt to undo 60 years of city governance that can best be described as incompetent and at worst can be described as criminal. Stand up Fred -- kick some union butt -- fine them for every day that the Lister Block is not conformant with bylaws.
The city should just expropriate this building (and any other abandoned heritage buildings). It could then sell to other more willing developers, under the condition that the building is renovated.