So I spent a good few hours last night reading a new Heritage Assessment on the Old Vic South Street Campus. I don't know about you guys, but I feel like this is one of the most interesting and important development sites in the city. The SoHo neighbourhood is chocked-full of old housing stock and is right on downtown's doorstep. A renaissance in this neighbourhood will directly affect the core, and provide for a more vibrant gateway to downtown via a revitalized Wellington strip. There's going to be a public meeting on January 16, 2012 regarding the redevelopment of the hospital lands. Anyone who's interested should make an effort to go, I know I'll be there.
For those of you not familiar with the campus, I quickly cropped out the eight buildings that are included in the assessment. The sprawling campus consists of many other buildings, but these eight are the ones that've been deemed worthy of conservation.
These three red brick buildings make up the northern streetscape of South Street. They've all been recommended for adaptive-reuse and restoration. After reading the report, it seems like a safe bet that these buildings will remain.
These five yellow brick buildings make up the southern streetscape of South Street. The retention and restoration of all five of these buildings appears to be more problematic since some of them are situated behind the massive art-deco Main Building. When the Main Building was built in the early '40s there was never any intention of saving the old hospital buildings. But as certain plans fell through and expansion became more sporadic, the old Italianate and Colonial buildings ended up dodging the wrecking ball.
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As I said above, it sounds like the three red brick northern buildings are relatively safe and will be restored. However, since it's unlikely all eight of the buildings can be kept, the report recommends either saving the art-deco Main Building and demolishing the other four southern buildings, or vice versa. The report seems to be leaning towards demolishing the Main Building since they believe the other buildings are more historically significant. Although I love the handsome smaller buildings, I believe the art-deco Main Building is much more iconic and is what people think of first when it comes to Old Vic. If the intention of this redevelopment is to preserve the memory of the hospital and keep it etched in Londoners' minds, then I think the Main Building is absolutely priority one. Not only that, but London has very few examples of art-deco architecture.
I think the redevelopment of South Street and the hydro lands to the west will be the projects that finally pull downtown south across the CN tracks to Horton. It really is exciting to think about what our central neighbourhoods could end up looking like in the coming years. Having both Old East Village and SoHo revitalized and more urban will do wonders for downtown. We desperately need strong, vibrant neighbourhoods surrounding the core.
Remember, January 16, 2012 for the public meeting. I'm not sure where the meeting will take place, but as soon as I find out I'll post here. For anyone interested in reading the full documents, all of the links can be found here:
London.ca - Roadmap SoHo
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