Bishop's Block is coming back to life at the corner of Adelaide and Simcoe as part of the new Living Shangri-La complex. Originally built in 1829 it was for many years run as a hotel. It was last used in the 1970's when it was a bar (see a more complete history here). The construction of the 65-storey luxury hotel and condo resulted in the original building coming down as there were structural issues. But much of the original brick as possible was retained. And now we can see the brick being installed on the new internal substructure. Since not all of the original brick was in decent shape new brick is being mixed in as well. This should turn out really well.

Image by khristopher

As for the tower portion of the project they have now reached the 10th floor. The project, developed by BC based Westbank, was designed by James Cheng in partnership with Hariri Pontarini Architects. Additional pictures of the brick along with Shangri-La updates can be found here.