How many occupied SFH's in your city's downtown core?
 

Like the title says, how many occupied single family homes are left in your city's downtown core?

For Calgary, it's one located at 521 8th Avenue SE - interesting that it has stood there for so long by itself.

Edit: Occupied as in being used by someone as a home, not as a retail or similar operation. Boarded up or being used by squatters, dunno about that - I would say no as it's a structure not bring utilized as a home by it's owner

Is that one occupied? Would Brinkhaus not count as well (823 6th Avenue S.W.)? What about 631 4th Avenue S.W.?

Isn't the first one a business? I don't think that counts. The one on 4th Avenue has been there forever. I'd love to know if the current owner lives there and for how long they've been there.

How are we defining the core and where can we see a map?

For Winnipeg, I can't think of one but I'm not sure where the downtown core ends and the suburbs begin.

There's this one lone house next to an industrial building on Brennan St. in Montreal. A man built it in 1950 and occupied it his whole life.

https://i.imgur.com/YJfpflR.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4B7TJeK.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/BXQrjgK.jpg


In 2014, the man's granddaughter got it in inheritance, after what she expanded and modernized the house in early 2016.

https://i.imgur.com/g2mr6Wl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/f55I2be.jpg

Just weeks after that, the house found itself on the list of buildings that might have to be expropriated to build the REM tunnel, but ultimately it was spared.

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/m...priation.shtml

Yes, it is occupied but I would consider Brinkhaus as not as it is a commercial entity now, not a home. 631 4th Avenue SW is no longer a residence, it is now being used as commercial office space.

As far as defining the downtown core, that'll have to left up to the individual posters.

We would have maybe 2 dozen or so left.

Depends on what you classify as Toronto's downtown, really. By the official definition (Bathurst to Don River to Bloor to Lakeshore) there are hundreds, if not thousands. It's difficult to accurately count as the majority of what look like "single family homes" are split into multiple apartments. Some have certainly been converted back into single dwellings though.

In the predominantly commercial areas there may be a few, although most are used for commercial purposes or as apartments. For example, occupied but very likely not a SFH: https://goo.gl/maps/MdMdxkeN21G2

Some of these may have single occupancy, but hard to tell (and not sure if rows count): https://goo.gl/maps/152Wcq4e3QU2

If we narrow it to the Financial District I don't believe there are any though.

They all have basement egresses. I wonder if they're original. Be interesting if it were. Anywho, they all have two mailboxes. 35 even has two hydro metres.

I hadn't really looked too closely, but looking at the brickwork above basement entrances indicate they may in fact be original. Or at least put in quite some time ago. 37 looks like it could potentially have been renovated back into one unit. Most would have been intended for multiple families from the outset, just without the physical separation between units we demand today.

The brickwork confirms it. I never would have figured that blocks like this would have been built as multi-family in the first place. I'm fascinating in ignorance.

(or maybe these were just doors to access the basement for fuel oil/ refuge because there's no way to the back.)

3

All on the south fringe, outside of downtown-downtown, in neighbourhoods that have always been residential but went highrise.

Lots in Vancouver, though almost all are heritage status and subdivided as multifamily or used for retail/office.

I don't think there is all that many in Toronto if you purely just use the boundaries of the "main" business core...

University Ave as the West boundary, Yonge to the East, Front to the South, Bloor to the North.

In and around St. Nicholas Street is the only area I can think of that still has single occupied homes (apartment conversions don't count).

Vancouver's Mole Hill alone has around 30 it seems, so the entire West End/Downtown might have well over 100, and some others are hidden behind store fronts. Probably none of these are still single family homes.

But if you were to broaden the area being defined as downtown, the number would be much higher in the thousands.

We transition to SFH incredibly quickly. The city is small and linear, both of which bring post-WWII suburbia within a couple of blocks of the heart of downtown in some directions.

The nearest SFH to the core are probably the in-fill houses that replaced central gardens in the rowhouse blocks:

http://i64.tinypic.com/1567cwn.png

http://i66.tinypic.com/j73xuo.png

Block exterior:

http://i64.tinypic.com/raneog.png

Block interior:

http://i67.tinypic.com/dp7p90.png

*****

In a broader sense, the city is so linear that Empire Avenue (the ring road, or railroad, in 1949. There was almost zero development outside it at that time) is a brick wall between rowhouses and SFH.

http://i63.tinypic.com/2aikbgj.png

http://i68.tinypic.com/2ykxr12.png

http://i67.tinypic.com/9ss1g4.png

And just to clarify, the full extent of the rowhouse districts, basically the core, is Craigmillar to Quidi Vidi:

http://i67.tinypic.com/2s80phv.png

http://i64.tinypic.com/230e4o.png

(This is not the shortest distance between them, but I dragged out the blue line to try to basically encircle the rowhouse areas).

I think that would be a great cafe or something. Very tiny footprint, and the last physical reminder of the original state of the community.

It's nothing really special but it has become quite the anomaly in that part of downtown - the only other oddball thing in that area was the gas station and I kind of wish it was still there as I did use it occasionally as it was the last gas station in Calgary's downtown core.

People have varying definitions of downtown, the OP mentions the downtown core, and that is usually defined as the continuous commercial area, consisting mainly of masonry or modern construction type buildings (non-wood construction), arranged along a streetscape in a continuous "urban" fashion. Any SFH to be found within this defined area, as opposed to older residential areas adjacent to or on the fringes of, would probably be quite rare in any of our cities.