Distillery community spirits low over Clear Spirits highrise

By Richard L. Reinert –

disA final meeting of the Distillery District working group on Sept. 10 has ended in frustration over the fate of the Clear Spirits condominium project looming large in the heritage community.

According to Lester Brown and other area representatives of the working group, compromise has not resulted from eight long meetings over six months. They met and discussed a number of options for residential housing with the city planning department and CityScape/Dundee, the owners and developers of the Distillery District, accompanied by their architects.

Brown characterized the final meeting of the group by saying, “They are building exactly what they wanted,” referring to the plans for two massive condominium towers of 40 to 48 storeys that are proposed for construction on the site of what is now called Rackhouse M.

At the previous meeting of the working group on Aug. 23, the area representatives had presented an alternative plan which would place one of the proposed residential towers closer to Cherry St. and would move one of the historic buildings to a new position such that the proposed buildings would be further from the centre of the Distillery District and provide “more open space, allowing it to breathe.”

Only some of the buildings that make up the former site of the Gooderham & Worts distillery are designated as having historic value while others are not. For example, the imposing, windowless Rackhouse M brick building under a large and colourful billboard that advertises Coca Cola does not have historic significance. Although it is not a particularly beautiful building, its western side has provided a sort of backdrop for a stage where bands play music for patrons seated in the outdoor patios of restaurants adjacent to the area.

The plans of the architects engaged by CityScape are to demolish the building and erect one of the two high-rise condominiums in its place. The square where restaurant patrons now sit will not be decreased in size and the brick wall will be maintained, although lowered.

Pam McConnell attended the Aug. 23 meeting and waited her turn until the end when, after acknowledging that “people from both sides have worked very hard,” she asked for one more meeting, saying that CityScape/Dundee, the area representatives and the city planners should “take it away and look at it once again.” She hoped that common ground might be found, otherwise the proposed project might be taken away from city planning and “go to the OMB.”

Members of each side did agree on at least one thing: at the Sept. 10 meeting of the working group, the heritage experts from city planning and CityScape/Dundee said it was illegal to move a historic building. Thus, the plans for two condominium towers would be reviewed by the planning department and their recommendation would be forwarded to council for discussion and approval or denial.

Some residents living near the Distillery District are frustrated and upset that two large residential structures might overwhelm the quaint and historic nature of the commercial area, that there is no unanimity among the neighbours and that the quaintness of the Distillery District is slowly dissipating. It was a commercial area to begin with, and tt is becoming a commercial area of a different nature, residents are realizing.

Others sympathize with people behind the revitalization of the Distillery District, people like David Jackson, the CEO of CityScape, who is attempting to combine these modern residential dwellings with historic buildings.

Jackson says the artists and retail shops in the Distillery District need a larger population nearby. He advances the argument that success in such an urban project is possible only with such a symbiotic relationship. He says he has tried very hard to work with residents of the neighbourhood and the planning department but expresses frustration with what he calls “bureaucratic amnesia.”

Urban planning experts believe that compromise can be found for this and other heritage neighbourhoods.

In an article in the Feb. 2005 Canadian Architect titled “Learning from the Distillery District,” Michael McClelland of ERA Architects writes, “The ideal of the unfettered modernist is still strong and there is a continual concern that attention to heritage is a bowing down before a contextualism which will eventually lead to compromise.”