Brantford Colborne Point | ?m | ?s | Vrancor Development

Well the bad news is that Brantford's downtown is forever going to be a wasteland. It was figuratively a wasteland and now it's literally a wasteland.

The good news is that no other city in Canada is capable of doing this ever again; no other city has that unique combination of rust belt economic desperation and high Victorian architecture. All the other Ontario downtowns that have such worthy buildings also value them and have found adaptive reuse for their old commercial blocks. It's not like this kind of hick nonsense will ever be replicated anywhere else.

So I will shed a tear, but I also know that this is a one time deal. What gets me much more worried are proposals in our very own city to facadectomy very vibrant and intimately-scaled turn of the century strips such as the King street restaurant row or those corner houses on Church and Gloucester. Unlike Brantford's desecration, we know that won't be the last facade job in Toronto.
 
While I'm definitely in the anti-demolition camp, I must say that I can...empathize? (or at least comprehend from the other side of the fence)...where the pro- side is coming from. A "heritage is bunk" attitude, particularly when it comes to propping up obsolete "garbage" that "nobody wants"...all in all, it isn't too far from the silent-majority sentiment that lies behind Rob Ford's popularity. And...really; let's look back to 70s Toronto, when an even more massive stretch of Yonge was similarly wiped out for the Eaton Centre, with scarcely a whimper beyond a few token (and disregarded) heritage listings: there's definitely a certain nostalgia for the can-doness that led to that wipeout, before the "hysterical preservationists" ran amok. With that under consideration, I'm surprised there aren't more UTers stepping up in defence of Brantford's actions--at least, extrapolating from those expressing support for Rob Ford and other such daffiness...
 
Tearing down buildings for a new development like Eaton Centre indeed sucks big time. But hastily pulling down heritage buildings where nobody is interested in immediately developing? That's just bizarre.
 
I am curious about how this could happen - is the entire block owned by the city, or by a single landlord? From Google Street View, a significant portion of the buildings were still occupied by businesses when the view was taken - were they all evicted?
 
Booted out one by one. Residential tenants were kicked out as well--I remember one story where someone was kicked out but his stuff was still there because he didn't pay attention to the eviction notice.
 
The problem with Brantford is it has no self-confidence. People there don’t recognize they have (had) something special because they live with it every day. In their minds run-down hundred-year old buildings are what are preventing their City from getting back on its feet.

It’s like the widow who pays to have her dead husband’s 1950’s Chevy towed to the scrap yard because she thinks it’s a worthless piece of junk.

One can only hope that out of darkness comes light.
 
... but don't we at least expect that city representatives would at least know better?
 
As someone whose home base is in Cambridge (currently living in Barrie for the summer), I could never understand why Brantford can't seem to find an economic niche. From an architectural point of view, it has some of the best bones in Ontario...a possible magnet for the creative class. Booming cities like KW, Barrie, Toronto, Ottawa, or even London (doing reasonably well), would kill to have some of the building stock they have.

I saw the expansion of WLU into Brantford and started getting hopeful. The large student population seems to bode well for Waterloo, Guelph, and Kingston. I figured that the successes of Brantford's Northern and Eastern neighbours would filter down, being so close to Waterloo Region and the GTA-Hamilton. They could've at least become a gentrified suburban town like Oakville, but it looks like it will just become another ghetto surrounded the same ol sprawl that's everywhere else. What a pity.
 
The problem is that this council is having to "clean up" what all the previous councils did over the last 40 years. They allowed massive new malls, big box stores, suburban wasteland development, built civic structures that alienate rather than enhance the street scape. Although I am certainly disgusted by this I don't see an alternative as they would sooner or later fail down due to disrepair and safety concerns. The funny thing is that despite this Brantford is still growing. Only a small amount each year but other far, far, far other nicer small cities are shrinking such as Chatham.
It is easy to bitch at City Hall but ultimately the blame can be places at the foot of the Brantford citizens.
 
ssiguy2 said:
The problem is that this council is having to "clean up" what all the previous councils did over the last 40 years. They allowed massive new malls, big box stores, suburban wasteland development, built civic structures that alienate rather than enhance the street scape.
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Sure, but there are a ton of other cities in Ontario that have all of those things to an even greater degree but their downtowns aren't anything like Brantford's. In fact, I've met people from Brantford who say they make regular trips to places like Cambridge and Hamilton to go on shopping excursions. Brantford doesn't even have a good mall and I draw a blank when trying to think about where in the city there is a power centre comparable to Bridgecam or Meadowlands.

Just 20 minutes up the street, Cambridge has 3 traditional downtowns to take care of and a MASSIVE suburban retail strip comparable to some of the worst examples in the GTA. And it is sprawling much much faster than Brantford. Although Galt, Preston, and (especially) Hespeler (the former town) have their problems, none of them are as sorry a sight as downtown Brantford. Just a bit further up the road, KW is awash in new condominiums, hotels, office buildings, and loft conversions, despite having several regional malls, power centres, and strips of the King George variety.

So I doubt it has much to do with the presence of suburban retail. I think it is an issue of the local economy and the relative lack of jobs in Brantford. Compared to other small and medium sized cities in Ontario, Brantford doesn't have too many people with a lot of money living there. It's known in the area as a place where you can get more house for less money for a reason.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Although I am certainly disgusted by this I don't see an alternative as they would sooner or later fail down due to disrepair and safety concerns.
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Many of those buildings were perfectly safe and structurally sound, and had people living and working in them. They had owners who cared for the buildings, some of which had been recently renovated. None of this mattered to City Council - it treated the whole strip as if it were falling down and filled with nothing but crackheads. They forced people out of their homes and workplaces whether they were in disrepair or not. Brantford's worst enemy is its own council and, yes, its own citizens who allowed this to happen.
 
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i sometimes pick a random american small town on google earth and virtually explore "main street". i can't believe how well and vibrant these places look, with their historical buildings and all. maybe brantford city council should have taken a trip to one of these towns so they could see how it's supposed to be done.
 
Given Six Nations' proximity, does Brantford have anything like an "aboriginal issue"? (A la the poor inner-city parts of Winnipeg, Vancouver, and so many other Western Canadian cities.) If so, that might be the kind of psychic disincentive that places like K-W, Cambridge, etc lack...
 
That's more in Caledonia than Brantford. Brantford's only 'aboriginal issue' is the charity casino, and that's more of a plus than a minus.
 
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