General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[the_conestoga_guy]

Kitchener properties to be designated under Ontario Heritage Act

Council approved the designation of the following Kitchener properties under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.

60 Victoria Street North

Weird choice to designate this as a heritage building...I don't see what is special about this one, though I haven't looked at the report. But considering it has had so many modifications over the years - particularly the bricking up of many of the original windows - it seems like a strange choice when the originality has been lost.

I agree, so I dug into the Heritage Committee docs to see if there was more info. From page 64/211 of the link:
https://pub-kitchener.escribemeetings.co...ntId=16384

We are seeking support and expertise recommendations from the Kitchener Heritage Committee to preserve the original 1913 section at 60 Victoria Avenue, Kitchener, for adaptive re-use. Additionally, we require recommendations for the potential demolition of the remaining addition(s) to facilitate the progress of the Kitchener Central Transit Hub project.

There is an image that shows the different sections of the building on page 58. In this case, they're just hoping to preserve the section closest King St, and would like to be consulted on any future modifications to the building. I certainly hope that restoration work to the property would include replacing the windows with some that resemble the original ones. I really think that cleaning up this building (in addition to building the transit hub) will do a lot to improve the streetscape along this stretch. Now if we could only solve homelessness...