Circa 1877 (née Brick Brewery) | 20 fl | Complete

[robdrimmie]

During the walk through I was asking about the concrete facade at the parking garage and was told that HIP wanted to do some cool street art on this originally but was shut down by the city and their urban design guidelines.

Committees....they will always take the "safe" road

That's an interesting anecdote and I wonder if that occurred before or after the gorilla sculpture and whether or not it influenced the "ask forgiveness not permission" position they took with it.

[tomh009]

Kitchener seems to be much more open to artwork on the sides of buildings.

[ac3r]

Kitchener seems to be much more open to artwork on the sides of buildings.

It always has been. There are so many murals downtown and elsewhere, it's pretty interesting to see. I think one of the alleyways used to permit graffiti even, though I truly can't remember whether this true or not...it's just a vague recollection of what I was told in the 1990s. There used to be a pretty cool gorilla painted somewhere downtown I loved, and my parents used to tell me that graffiti was permitted there.

[cherrypark]

New aerial shot on the HIP Instagram. Looking better with the paint.

   

[Bjays93]

Not gonna lie I thought that was a rendering at first. It still feels bare bones to me though.

[ac3r]

Not gonna lie I thought that was a rendering at first. It still feels bare bones to me though.

It's Photoshopped quite a bit. The colours are definitely not natural, so it looks like a rendering.

[Spokes]

I thought it was a rendering too!

[Momo26]

Those who live here or know folks that do, how's the building shape up, inside and out?

[tomh009]

The more attractive side of Circa 1877.

   

[danbrotherston]

Not gonna lie I thought that was a rendering at first. It still feels bare bones to me though.

It's Photoshopped quite a bit. The colours are definitely not natural, so it looks like a rendering.

I mean, I guess photoshopping is verb now, but these tools are pretty ubiquitous, and pretty common.

As an example, I took the second image and put it in Google Photos and just hit the auto tune button. What comes out is significantly different from the first one. One can argue about the style, or look, certainly it looks different from unprocessed photos. Algorithms can clearly go too far, but it's also easy to interpret something different from the usual as being inherently fake.

   

[ac3r]

Since the goal is to sell units in the building to potential customers it's not at all surprising they use Photoshopped images. A flashy photograph is going to capture attention better than a raw cell phone photograph will. And once a potential customer goes to visit the building, their attention won't be on colours and such, so they may not notice how bad a building looks in reality.

[Tony_Plow]

There's signage up for a new resto/bar/lounge called "The Alchemiste" opening Fall 2021 in the old Brick Brewery building.  I've seen the renderings and they're jaw-droppingly good.
As an aside, I really wish they could implement a plan to extend the retail streetscape from William to Union and make this corridor more pedestrian friendly.  There is such a high density of new condos in this corridor (with more on the horizon).  Longer term, I would love to see Chartwell relocate its retirement home or rebuild and replace the park at the corner of William and King with ground-level retail.

[taylortbb]

There's signage up for a new resto/bar/lounge called "The Alchemiste" opening Fall 2021 in the old Brick Brewery building.  I've seen the renderings and they're jaw-droppingly good.

https://instagram.com/thealchemiste_ gives some hints as to the aesthetic, looks very focused on cocktails.

[westwardloo]

There's signage up for a new resto/bar/lounge called "The Alchemiste" opening Fall 2021 in the old Brick Brewery building.  I've seen the renderings and they're jaw-droppingly good.
As an aside, I really wish they could implement a plan to extend the retail streetscape from William to Union and make this corridor more pedestrian friendly.  There is such a high density of new condos in this corridor (with more on the horizon).  Longer term, I would love to see Chartwell relocate its retirement home or rebuild and replace the park at the corner of William and King with ground-level retail.

Great to hear another restaurant is planning on opening up. I will definitely be checking this out when the pandemic is over. Have to disagree with you slightly. I don't want to see the park space replaced. Cities should be looking at ways to increase park space not replace it. Ideally they should get rid of Kuntz lane and the parking and make Brewmeister Green Park bigger  I had heard a while back that the funeral home had been looking to sell or had been sold to a developer? so if you include that potential redevelopment and the redevelopment of the adult recreational centre that stretch of king will have a nice retail presence.  I can't see chartwell relocating the retirement home anytime soon. Its not that old and it is probably a more popular retirement home based on its location.  Its too bad the old Kuntz/ Labatts was torn down and replaced with bungalows, but I guess it was a different time for urban development and the city would take anything they could get.

[mastermind]

When I see that restaurant name my mind automatically switches it to "La Alchemiste"