Forum member MetroMan posted the following photo today showing there are plans to rebuild Duke's Cycle at 623-625 Queen West. As you may recall this part of Queen Street burned down last year.  

Image by MetroMan

MetroMan Reports: 

There's a minor variance notice on the hoarding of the burned down Dukes building on Queen @ Bathurst. I'm surprised this was missed until now. It's a major development for those living and shopping on West Queen West. For those not aware of the issue with rebuilding these heritage buildings that burned down: because anything built here would be new structures, the city was assessing the owners new property taxes that were huge increases over what they previously paid. Out of all the tenants, I guess Duke's is the only business able to afford the new property taxes. Also, I believe it was reported that Duke's was the only owner with insurance that would cover the rebuilding costs. I hope that they use photos of the old buildings to reconstruct them in the spirit of West Queen West's architecture. The good news is that Duke's takes up 2 lots so rebuilding it will go a long way to narrowing the empty lot. For the purpose of this thread, does anybody have photos of the buildings before they burned down?

MetroMan hopes that they will rebuild in the spirit of West Queen West's architecture. This leads into an interesting discussion of what this really means. Should they rebuild exact replicas of what existed previous or go with something new. What do you think?