According to the article in the Herald this morning, the plan is to completely demolish the Roy building and build an exact replica using as much salvaged material as possible?! Umm... that seems kind of ridiculous to me. What's the point of blowing it up and then rebuilding it? It's not like it's a great piece of architecture to begin with. I'm all for saving these historic buildings... 100%... but blowing it up and building a replica doesn't count... in my books. If you're going to blow it up... why not just start from scratch and build a completely newly designed building?
And the tower on top... visible or not... is dull and awkward. There's nothing interesting about it. It's a uniform red brick box. They tried to add interest to the back by taking their box and putting some wavy glass "icing" on it but doesn't work for me. I'd say go back to the drawing board. Restore the building a design an interesting, modern, contrasting addition.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/1066716.html