THUNDER BAY – A local architect sees the potential for outside the box thinking to help create a new life for many of the city’s older buildings.
John Stephenson, the president of the Ontario Association of Architects and partner with FORM Architecture Engineering in Thunder Bay, said constructing brand new buildings has a limited impact on the quality of building stock.
“New buildings are fun but they don’t come along very often, particularly in an economy like Thunder Bay’s,” Stephenson said after giving a presentation to the Port Arthur Rotary Club on Tuesday.
“But there is a need constantly to renew the existing building stock and reimagine existing buildings. Not always repurposing them, maybe just updating them, but certainly you can look around the community and see a number of buildings that have outlived their original purpose.”
There are many buildings throughout the city that were designed in an era where energy efficiency and accessibility were not a primary concern, which in some cases has led to them becoming empty or facing challenges meeting the needs of users.
“These buildings don’t need to be thrown away. They shouldn’t be thrown away. It’s not really responsible to demolish buildings and cart all this material off to the landfill site when they can be repurposed and adapted to new uses,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson highlighted the former Eaton’s building on the city’s north side, which has largely been underutilized since the store closed in 1997, as an example of a space that could use creative thinking.
The building’s large footprint and location in the north downtown core, combined with the lack of a convention facility to host conferences larger than can be accommodated by local hotels could spark an opportunity, Stephenson said.
“I look at the Eaton’s building, I look at these ambitions (for a convention centre) and I say maybe there’s a fit here,” Stephenson said, adding the notion is just an idea and he has no personal stake.
“What if we were to reimage the Eaton’s building as a conference facility and design it in a way that builds in mixed use so it could have retail store frontages along the street front and meeting facilities on the second floor and possibly even a large banquet hall on the roof of the building.”
Another example is the Victoriaville Centre, which city administration last week said was still at least a year away from a decision being made on whether it would face a wrecking ball. The cost to demolish the nearly 40-year-old south side plaza has been estimated at $9.5 million.
Stephenson noted the community still has to make the decision on whether to demolish the structure, but pointed out that could be a case where creating an opening could revitalize the south downtown.
“I think there’s an opportunity to reimagine the street itself and think more about what I call a complete street which embraces all modes of transportation, not just the automobile. It embraces cycling and pedestrians and is imagined particularly in the downtown core as an outdoor room, a place to be and not just a place to pass through,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson said the ability to dream and come up with ideas nobody else is considering are important tools as an architect.
“It’s a matter of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. That’s what architects are good at, is dreaming up crazy ideas that maybe at the end of the day aren’t so crazy at all,” Stephenson said.
