[BrianE]

Oh I don't know, over at Raisethehammer.org their latest blog points out that Heritage Watch Hamilton wanted to preserve the facade. For some reason they wanted the stone around the windows, although why a new building would replicate such small and mishaped windows is beyond me...

And I must disagree with you that this building matched the street scape and that any new building won't fit in. I guess that may be true only in the sense that a new building won't be using 80 year old bricks.

I would propose that the only reason this building matched the streetscape in the first place is because it was built around the same time as the other buildings and was in similar state of disrepair. The abrupt changes in architectural styling between floors and that one column of windows I find to be quite jarring and unatractive to my eyes.

Using an example of the new buildings going up on King St in the international Village, I think a new building can fit in with the existing street scape and maybe even in a better way that the old building did. Since in my opinion it didn't fit the streetscape in the first place.