The Canada Malting and Victory Mills silos are like two great concrete bookends on the downtown waterfront. Located at the bottoms of Bathurst and Parliament streets, the former soya and grain storage facilities are relics of a time when the port of Toronto was a place of heavy industry, not entertainment, BlogTo reports.
But while Lake Shore Blvd. and latterly
Queens Quay East. have been the focus of extensive improvements since the
1980s, the silos have remained derelict.
The Canada Malting silos at Bathurst were
built in 1928 as a place to store barley before being transformed into malt,
which is used in beer and other products. Canada Malting Co shut down in
November 1987 and the City of Toronto has been looking for an "adaptive
reuse" project to take over the designated heritage buildings since 1993.
Ideas ranged from a hotel complex to a new storage facility for the Archives of
Ontario to a giant mausoleum with space for 6500 coffin crypts and 5000 niches
for urns.
Several potentially viable plans have
surfaced since then, most recently the 1996 Metronome plan that would have
turned the concrete building and surrounding area into a music themed cultural
centre, complete with an 800-seat auditorium, museum, retail, and restaurants.
According to Lynda Macdonald with community
planning at the City of Toronto, that plan fell apart when the project's
backers couldn't produce the necessary funding (the website is still up, if you
feel like exploring a little.)
Ms Macdonald says the city is developing a
plan for the Bathurst Quay neighbourhood with a view to once again finding a
purpose for the silos, among other things. Build Toronto, the city's real
estate arm, is seeking expressions of interest that will play well with the
nearby school and Ireland Park. "Creative ideas" for "quite
extraordinary" buildings, she says. The process is due to wrap up next
month.
Read more HERE.
The Global Miller
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