Barra on Queen | 7 fl | Complete

[rangersfan]

Quirky landmark will meet the wrecker’s ball
September 10, 2010 | mdalton | The Record | LINK

KITCHENER — A regal, quirky landmark that has stood watch on Queen Street for more than 80 years will soon be no more.

City council has approved the demolition of Barra Castle after a developer’s attempt to save the front section of the deteriorating building proved too costly.

“Unfortunately, what we found when we started ripping out the walls and some of the stucco and plaster was the building was in poorer condition than we thought,” said Paul Puopolo, the developer who bought the old apartment block last year.

“We thought we could probably save it, and we realized we would probably have to spend some extra dollars, but the dollars and cents became too much.”

Restoring the 3,660-square-foot building would cost more than $1 million — double the price originally estimated — according to a heritage impact assessment completed this year.

Reconstructing the front portion of the building with modern materials would cost less than half that.

An independent review commissioned by the city confirmed the building is in a serious state of disrepair.

Repairing it would require working floor by floor to jack up the building to make repairs to partitions and load-bearing walls and injecting resin into cracks that compromised the foundation.

A city planning report on the proposed demolition acknowledges it would amount to a significant loss, but noted “the refusal of the request for demolition is unreasonable.”

The demolition was endorsed by Heritage Kitchener at an August committee meeting.

Heritage committee chair Kerry Kirby said the vote was split and he did not support the demolition.

“I hate to see this thing go,” he said. “My job is to preserve the heritage and culture of the city of Kitchener. If a developer wants to develop, then let him develop and spend those costs. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it goes.”

The committee, which advises council, was “caught in between” when the city-commissioned study came to similar conclusions as the developer about the extent of the damage and the cost to restore, he said.

Barra Castle, built in 1930 by Molly Marquette, was designed to resemble a Russian castle where she lived as a child. It was originally used as a residence. Later, rental apartments were added as additions on the back.

The last tenants were evicted in 2007 after inspectors found serious fire and electrical code violations. The power and gas to the building were ordered shut off.

The now-derelict building is the source of local legends — including the story that Marquette’s son built airplanes in the basement and that Marquette herself dug the foundation despite only having one leg.

A 2009 heritage assessment describes the castle as having “an eccentric history to match its bizarre architecture.”

That assessment, based on an initial structural review, found there was significant damage to the building, but recommended restoring the front section, deemed to be of very high historical value, while demolishing the less significant additions.

Puopolo started work on those plans and demolished the additions, but once workers started removing the castle’s interior finishings, they found that years of neglect and structural deficiencies had taken too great a toll.

“Some of it was weather-related conditions ... but also poor workmanship originally by the owner. It wouldn’t pass today’s code,” he said.

Even if it were possible to restore the building, only about 40 or 50 per cent of the original structure would be left, he said.

He said the plan now is to duplicate the building with new materials, incorporate some of the old materials and salvaged artifacts into a new building or start again with a more contemporary structure.

The building sits in the city’s Victoria Park Heritage Conservation District and any new building would need to meet district heritage criteria.