The loss of historical buildings in Canada to developers

Man. Don't being doing this. You are a well appreciated member of the community, even if some people give you a hard time.

...well, whatever's eating him, I hope he's okay.

Sky Captain wrote:

al-Qa'bong wrote:

This thread seems to have drawn out some latent Howard Roark fans.

I'm not Howie Roark by any means, al-Qa'bong-just a person that is councious of the realities of doing business like everybody else is. Nor do I believe in all of those tall buildings (mostly condos these days) being built, either. But as I said, either a building-any building-finds a buyer, and a use, or it goes. Please don't go putting words into my mouth, or be insinuating things I never said.

I haven't rad the entire thread. Webgear keeps distracting me. But I think you fail to appreciate the incentives. It often, too often, works like this: Speculator buys buildings as they become available in older cities cores and commercial districts that have been allowed to fall into neglect due to the decantering of inner cities into suburbs and exburbs of the past 30 years. Their plan is to sit on these properties betting that eventually the pendulum will swing back and some developer will want the land which can then be flipped for a tidy profit. But they don't want to be landlords for several reasons. First, they don't care about the buidling only the land. Second, many municipalities offer attractive tax concessions for vacant commercial properties. Third, being a landlord engenders costs which  is like inflation to a land speculator. Fourth, neglect of the buildings, and even purposeful acts to allow the elements to invade historic buildings (even such as not replacing broken windows), helps to ensure a demo order will be granted when requested ("the building is too badly damaged to be restored").

A huge portion of Canadian herirage properties  lay in the hands of what are essentially gamblers who care not one whit for Canada's history nor future. And.they'd rather throw a few hundred dollars at politicians in cheap suits every few years than contribute a dime toward preserving the decaying remains of Canada's built heritage.Unfortunately, there are no shortage of hucksters willing to take the legal bribe.

FM, you basically described what has been going on in the Exchange and other downtown areas of Winnipeg. It's sad, short-shighted and selfish.