^I would agree personally that overall, I'm "meh" – however I HATE the idea of black corrugated metal everywhere.
I was just saying to someone the other day I wish the city would outright ban corrugated metal as a dominant finishing material on any non-industrial building. Accents are OK, if done properly.
One of the apartment buildings on Assinniboine is currently covering over its brick wall with white corrugated metal, looks brutal. It was good of the city to force the developer on Sherbrook to replace the metal they put up, which was not the approved design. Midtown/Car Land and the building with Moksha on Donald look horrendous covered in corrugated metal.
So looking at that photo again, is there no entrance from that side at all? Just that horrible entranceway being installed on James? Seems a little odd.
To me, heritage-wise, it is much more egregious to break up the entire south wall with that awful succubus-looking entrance than building a building on either side, on empty lots, that blocks the east and west views.
The tree in the foreground is definitely on city property, appears the other one is along the pumphouse, so if it needed to be taken down it likely would have already.
looks like things are getting close to starting up, there is an application for encroachment agreement with the city in the most recent prop and dev committee agenda.