Brantford's choice: Wreckage or revitalization
TheSpec.com - Local -Christopher Hume
To those in favour of tearing them down, the 41 heritage buildings on Colborne St. in Brantford are decaying relics of the past.
To those who would save them, they represent the future.
But if Brantford council gets its way, the structures will be destroyed anyway, perhaps as soon as this week.
The decision to demolish flies in the face of everything this community of 90,000 has gone through in the last decade. That's when Wilfrid Laurier University came to town and started buying and renovating old buildings throughout Brantford's much mutilated downtown. The estimated economic impact is somewhere between $20 and $27 million annually.
Just as important, Brantford looks less like an elegant ghost town than it has in some time. Though the core remains empty by, say, Toronto standards, life can now be found along these newly refurbished arteries.
Then there's Colborne St., one of the oldest thoroughfares. Built on a steep incline that reached up from a canal built in the mid-19th century, it was part of the original business district. However, with the collapse of the farm machinery industry in the 1980s, Brantford fell on hard times. Massey Ferguson, White Farm and other local businesses closed their doors, throwing 15,000 out of work.
At the same time, the forces of sprawl were busy transforming the hinterland into the usual mix of malls, subdivisions and industrial parks. Commuter culture meant that most residents lived, worked, shopped and played well outside of downtown. They had no ties to the city and stayed away in droves.
That period of decline brought the civic masochists to the fore; they encouraged the destruction of some of Brantford's finest buildings, including its city hall, to make way for some of the most unfortunate developments imaginable – Eaton Centre and Market Square come to mind. Even when Laurier showed up, and Nipissing University, city council was reluctant to offer support.
To many residents and politicians, Brantford wasn't worth being saved, especially from itself.
Laurier now operates 18 buildings in Brantford and evidence of renewal can be seen everywhere – except on the south side of Colborne. Buildings there have sat empty for decades and are shabby and rundown. That makes them an embarrassment to the councillors who believe they should be reduced to rubble.
The more optimistic argue they should be kept and given new life. They say the sheer number of buildings guarantees the critical mass of heritage architecture needed to fuel a revitalization program. That process has already revived parts of Brantford and will inevitably reach Colborne St.
After 30 years of waiting, however, a majority on council is anxious to continue down the trail of destruction begun decades ago. Not even the absence of a plan deters these would-be wreckers. They're not pursuing demolition to make way for something bigger and better, just to clear the site. Not only is this dumb, it's self-destructive.
"Heritage is a major asset," insists Leo Groarke, who oversaw Laurier's Brantford expansion. "It's one of the things that attracts students."
Since Brantford council voted to expropriate the Colborne properties several months ago, they have been boarded up. The last tenant was thrown out Friday. No surprise then, that the buildings look like so many ruins-in-waiting. Some are in better shape than others, but what's significant is they stretch almost four blocks, enough to transform the city.
What frustrates preservationists is that Brantford has finally reached the point where revitalization is within grasp. But this sort of shift takes time; now that the downtown is finally making a comeback, tearing down Colborne St. would be premature and ill-advised.
Brantford has enough problems without inflicting more of its own.
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