After over 18 years in operation, the former clubbing institution known as The Guvernment/Kool Haus Entertainment Complex on Toronto’s east waterfront is nearing the end of its 3 month demolition. Taking a walk around the site 8 weeks after The Daniels Corporation got the keys you could easily forget that upwards of 5,000 people used to dance here until sunrise.

A gutted Kool Haus lurks behind a pile of concrete support columns, image by kotsy

The entire east side the building that used to house the large main room, manager's offices and the entrance to Kool Haus is completely leveled and void of any resemblance of a dance hall. What sits in its place now are massive piles of steel, metal, cinder blocks, concrete rubble and bricks awaiting be placed in bins and recycled. Support columns are toppled over and the checkered dance floor has been replaced with concrete dust. 

A pile of concrete support columns sit in place of the former entrance to Kool Haus, image by kotsy

Meanwhile, the northwest side of the building where Kool Haus was has been completely gutted all the way to west wall, which is being carefully taken apart brick by brick to provide an extra level of safety to the covered sidewalk below.

Workers remove Kool Haus' exterior west wall brick by brick, image by kotsy

Workers remove Kool Haus' exterior west wall brick by brick, image by kotsy

A few lonely floating balloons from the last event don’t seem to have gotten the hint that the party is over.

The shell of The Guverment's many side rooms are seen through a gutted Kool Haus, image by kotsy

Large segments of Kool Haus’ roof have been removed while a few segments with a white metal installation on top remain intact as part of the engineer’s approved plan to safely take down the structure.

Looking southwest from the former Kool Haus entrance into a gutted Kool Haus, image by kotsy

Moving south lies the skeleton of the side rooms Chroma, The Gallery and Surface. The boarded up sidewalk hides most of the daylight from The Gallery in the southwest corner where the perimeter wall has been partially removed.

The shell of Chroma, Surface and The Drink are shown at the south/west corner of The Guvernment, image by kotsy

Former entance to The Gallery, one of The Guvernment's many side rooms, image by kotsyAn excavator makes a pile of steel ready to be sent away for recycling, image by kotsy

Kool Haus demolition takes place, viewed from The Guvernment's main room former stage area, image by kotsy

Meanwhile the roof top patio Sky Bar is the only area in the whole facility that still has any resemblance to its former self. This won’t last as workers have begun stripping off the roof membrane and peeling back the cap flashing. From the south side of Queens Quay you can make out a RIP Guv graffiti tag as Sky Bar’s railings are sawed off and removed. 

Workers remove Sky Bar's railing in front of a graffiti memorial, image by kotsy

The former entrances to The Guvernment's side rooms, viewed from the bottom of Jarvis St, image by forum contributor Roundabout

Approximately 3 weeks remain until this demo is complete, Pro Green Demolition will move on to their next project, and shoring will get underway for Daniels Waterfront: City of the Arts.

Want to know more about the project? We have renderings and other information in our dataBase file for the project, linked below. Want to talk about it? Choose the associated Forum thread link to get in on the discussion, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.