It’s been nearly a year and a half since the scaffolding of doom on Barrington Street went up above three local businesses—The Loop (1547 Barrington Street), Ciboulette (1541 Barrington) and Chives Canadian Bisto (1537 Barrington)—in November 2014 to catch pieces of the decaying building after one piece in particular went through a driver’s windshield.
The scaffolding was a stop-gap solution that only served to block storefronts and impede visitor traffic, resulting in The Loop owner Mimi Fautley’s estimation of 15 to 20 percent profit losses. Now, Fautley says there’s finally talk of installing an awning instead, but for The Loop that’s too little too late—they’ve already devised a plan to move down the street to the recently vacated Frank & Oak space at 1557 Barrington at the end of March.
Just before the big move, community members have organized a cash mob for The Loop from 12-4pm this Saturday, March 12, to show their appreciation for the yarn shop with an influx of arts-and-crafts-dedicated dough. To take part, just commit to spending at least $10 on anything in the store and you’ll get a chance to win some awesome prizes, plus good feels from sending Fautley and co. off in style. “It’s absolutely mind-blowingly lovely,” says Fautley of the cash mob. “You know, it’s really the goodwill demonstrated by just the communication—watching people share it on Facebook and offer donations for door prizes, it’s been lovely and touching to see that much goodwill expressed towards the business.”
Related Stories
Why does Barrington Street remain barren?
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2016.
The “Chinese slumlords” are called Dongdu International, though I don’t know enough about them to judge whether they’re slumlords or not. They did some restoration on the rear of the building a year or two ago, and have plans to restore the cladding on the front, but haven’t yet begun.
It strikes me that for all the criticism Starfish takes, they’re responsible for a lot of the best looking best-restored historic buildings on Barrington. Other owners–like whoever owns the Tramway (the one with Venus Envy and Obladee)–seem content to let buildings just sit there, falling apart.
Hopefully Dongdu is serious about fixing the building. Maybe the city needs to bump up incentives for owners to restore their buildings before it’s too late. This is, after all, the city’s only official heritage district, and it’s embarrassing for half of the buildings to look so decrepit.
What do you mean , the landlords live in China or are they Chinese Canadians ? Either way I’m not sure of the relevance of their ethnicity.
My understanding is that Dongdu International has purchased buildings in other cities (e.g. Detroit) with big promises to restore them, but years later no work has been done. So I’m not really holding out any hope here…
The Tramway is currently owned by Urban Spaces Ltd.
The city had a pretty great carrot in the Barrington Heritage District (large pot of money for exterior restorations), maybe now it’s time they use some sort of stick.
It’s ridiculous that our most important heritage street to be filled scaffolding with to protect people from bits and pieces are falling off the facades of buildings. It’s fucking embarrassing.
The problem is that the conservation district has no teeth. It doesn’t even prevent demolitions. An owner can apply to tear a building down, and they have to wait 36 months while public consultations are held, and the city tries to broker an agreement, but if no agreement is reached, the owner can just tear it down anyway. In many cities, a heritage designation means “NO DEMOLITION.” Not here.
At some point, perhaps when a building is deemed to be in imminent crisis, the city might just need to step in and repair deteriorating heritage buildings and bill the property owner. The terracotta facade of the Pacific Building is all busted up, but it’s beautiful, and unique in the city. It would be ridiculous to lose it because the property owner just let it fall off.
On the other hand, Dongdu did do some repair work on the rear of the building. So maybe they have genuine designs on fixing it, but are just really slow.