Back In Time: Re-Visiting Historical Waterloo Region

[nms]

The concept of the preservation of architecture for the future was never something talked about in public because no one really cared about heritage until about the 1990s (my best guess).  Cities or towns didn't have funds or a willingness to preserve.

Stratford had a battle in the early 70s in response to plans to demolish their own city hall and replace it with an office tower - a plan quite similar to the plans in Kitchener and Waterloo. In Stratford, preservation won.

In Stratford's case, the plan was to build a hotel. The plan fell through when the powers that be concluded that Stratford did not have a need for a large, year-round hotel since the primary clientele, the Festival crowd, was seasonal.

In Waterloo's case, the City was written off as in poor condition and too small for the growing City.  Around the same time, the Waterloo Market building and the Fire Hall were also demolished to make way for the new WPL main branch as well as the extension of Dupont Street.