Beasley Lofts | ? | 12 fl | Proposed
 

134 Mary Street/134 Cannon Street

New Condo

A friend of mine on the Fire Department was at this address on the weekend for what turned out to be a broken sprinkler pipe. This was, I believe the Cannon Knitting Mills Limited. It has been vacated and cleaned out. I believe they moved to Scarborough

The building is for sale for $799,000 by DTZ Barnicke Limited and here is part of the description from the MLS web site. “Textile Mfg. building on the South/East corner of Cannon & Mary Street. 3 levels of approximately 110,000 sf total. Built in approximately 1860 & always used as a textile factory.”

When the property manager showed up they found out that the building has been sold to a Toronto company who is planning to turn it in to condos. They have completed an internal environmental study and found no problems. They are awaiting and external environmental study before closing the deal.

Interesting was when I checked the address in Google Earth, it has Mary Street lined up with truck taking all of the equipment out of the building.

That's awesome if that's the case. Although I walked by it a month ago and was thinking condos, but the crowd outside of the Good Shepard building had me questioning that.

Fantastic news indeed! Funny - in my many walks around the city, I don't recall that corner. Good Shepherd aside, it looks like a neat part of town.

I can't see anyone wanting to live ON Cannon with the current street design. I once did. I didn't have a conscious appreciation for urban form back then, but I do remember it being hard to back out of the driveway due to the volume and speed of traffic. Now that I think about it, walking places wasn't much fun either.

The plethora of automotive and other low-value-added land uses along Cannon is of course as much of a problem, but this works in synergy with bad street configuration to keep the street undesireable for all but the most utilitarian uses.

depending on what the units are priced at, i could be interested in that when the time comes to buy.

i don't mind the grit/one ways so much if you've got decent windows, and the location is really central, plus i like the building a lot. not as picturesque as living on James in those proposed acclamation ones, but still close to almost everything including the hospital.

This is one of the best looking industrial buildings in Hamilton. The nice part of the building doesn't face Cannon and one of Hamilton's nicest rowhouses is just a block or two away.

I'm assuming this is the building we're talking about?

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sourc...59.986289&z=16

So much potential
 

There is a great park for sitting and walking your dog behind it or off your balcony. Not that far from HGH. 2 blocks from the police station and constant bike patrols. New School and a rec centre. Food basics a 3 block stroll and James street markets a quick trip.
Hopefully this will raise the bar as yes there are some shelters, the good sheppard and Wesley Centre closeby.
But the more eyes with vested interest will deter the vagrants and they will migrate. :haha: :haha:
Good luck also the new Shoppers is not far.
Imagine if they were to put a Mall at Barton and Ferguson.

This is the good side though:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ley/00053a.jpg


And these are the nice homes down the street:

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...sley/00088.jpg

And this one:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...mmer/00166.jpg


This area is much nicer than people tend to think. This could be an amazing neighbourhood, you don't find stuff like this in too many Canadian cities.

Not too shabby, a lot of potential in that building. Strolling down the street via Google Street view, the area is better than I expected. Two blocks down going towards downtown could really use some buildings to fill those empty lots though.

Yup. Gorgeous. Or so I've always thought as I'm whizzing by on Cannon.

There was a 3 bed, 2 bath, 2-story house directly across from those rowhouses (white siding) that was on sale for 99k a little while ago - took a few months to sell though, possibly because of the group and halfway houses around it. The houses immediately near it though were all very nice - and it has a 155' deep lot! In the middle of the city!

I really, really like the idea of a smaller condo community instead of a highrise for this building. The success of this project could lie in the pricing and layout of the units - and the maintenance fee. I can't imagine they'll make it a super-luxe building, but I hope it's a reasonable condo fee.

I wonder why they chose this location and this building...with so many other empty buildings in better locations ie. aberdeen, locke, downtown etc. hmmm must be something they know...

Price per sf!

I'd love to get a white-box condo and finish it from there.... I wonder if Hamilton will ever get onto that market.

I've been quiet on this for a while but I cant anymore.

I'm only going to say this.... because I know a bit about this building.

I worked summers in there. My aunt co-owned and CEO'd a textile company there. she was the last remaining tenant, up until the early 90s. *think of a locally known Jewish family name and ad "textiles" after it and that was the name of the co.* She employed about 20 people at the end, making hotel bed comforters and drapery for schools. It occupied the third floor. I didn't have anything to do. I don't even know what my job was. Mostly to get sandwiches from Genuine bakery and lift anything heavy. I was the only male worker + 20 other ladies at sewing machines who had worked there for 40 years. So that was my job, part sandwich runner, part heavy lifter and part security from the soup line patrons outside.*not that I could do much but I was a 19-21 years old and could do more then 20 grandmas, they were cute ladies*. And I guess I just wandered around until someone asked me to do something. anyway enough down memory lanes.

I know who the owners were. I loved the building. The vastness, all hardwood, brick interior walls, tons of windows, you didn't even need lights during a sunny day. And it kept ok comfortable in the summer from the very high ceilings. Giant sliding wooden doors from floor to ceiling. They were like the original office partition walls. it had a horse-drawn elevator thing. Gigantic weighing scales that measured in the 1000s of pounds. And it smelled like clean linen and wood..... a good smell.

However. I have 3 cousins who r firefighters. The building is near the top of the list for most fire hazard.. My aunt said the insurance costs were enormous because of the fire potential. Insurance wanted it routinely inspected to keep the fire insurance.

I don't mean to discredit Fair's source. It may very well be true. I hope it is.

An Interior environmental inspection could mean anything from what I just mentioned... an insurance requirement. Or like my cousins have told me that they routinely inspect it anyway... because of its potential.

Also if that building were to have a fire, they are instructed to not enter, its not safe and will be a fast burning fire like tissue paper... just keep people away and let it burn. The only stair wells are at opposite ends of the building, it's quite a distance. They're large and concrete but still, get out asap. the thing is coming down in minutes, was what I was told. Lots of old wood and lots of fabric. I was told this weekly if you smell smoke... maybe that was my job walking around. It had sprinklers but the sprinklers were retrofitted on *I'm guessing bc the ceilings are sick high* 20 feet. A hot fire would turn the water from the sprinklers to steam before it hit the fire.

When you're together with 3 fire fighters the convo is usually about fire stuff, and gruesome accident stories. So my aunts building always comes up.

This is what Im saying.

Im sure all the fabric is gone but the tiny fibres are still everywhere in bedded in the 150 year old wood. So what I know is that building is regularly checked by the FD anyway. Because of the area, arson potential and it wouldn't take much for that building to be up in 100 foot flames.

I'm just saying I'm hopeful that it becomes condos, but based on an environmental interior study... which could mean a lot of things. Its probably good structurally its a triple-brick, I-beam posts and wood floors. There's not much else to it. same on all 3 floors. It's standing and not much can happen unless it gets on fire. Someone's wish to turn it into condos does not mean it will. It was sold, that's great. I know the owners' family and they had pretty much all moved to Toronto now anyway. and they way they do business is over a big family lunch, site unseen.... send out some inspectors.. family to family. They buy properties like you and I would playing Monopoly.

That's all I'm going to say.

I'd be absolutely heart broken if this beautiful building became victim of a fire. This is probably one of the most beautiful old industrial buildings we have left. The only ones I can think of that compare are the old hobo hardware and ball packaging plants on Victoria and Wellington, near Barton. Even the Studebaker plant feels modern compared to these Confederation-era buildings. They're amazing relics that we need to protect from danger.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2...ley/00053a.jpg

that's not it... this red brick building with gables.

It's the building on the left of the photo. you can begin to see two pilasters and three windows.

I thought all of those buildings were interconnected?

No.

you can see the floor to floor difference. This red brick bldg is 4 floors and the Knitting Mills is 3 floors and still taller. Which is why I mentioned the enormous ceiling height.

Also this red brick building, has gables on the roof on corner section *likely original section*, then a fire wall and probably what came next is an annex... a nice job too. because it matches perfectly except for the roof/top floor. The annex builder cheaped out, instead of gables and nice cornice brackets, (almost a mansard roof actually) they built a 4th vaulted ceiling floor.

The red brick bldg and its annex are likely interconnected but the building on the far left and bldg on the right are not.