It wasn’t a pretty sight.
The debris pile was nearly a metre deep when the new owner surveyed the top floor of the Lorraine building.
The ground floor windows were boarded up. The building — a proudly upscale apartment house constructed in 1913 — had sagged slightly over the years as massive wooden supports in the basement rotted at their base, says Neil Richardson.
But through it all, he saw potential.
The building, in the 600 block of 12th Avenue S.W., was damaged by fire three years ago and bought about a year later by Richardson, a lawyer who has been restoring heritage real estate for about eight years.
Adjustable steel posts have replaced the timbers at the bottom of the building. A new roof is going up using modern joist structures in place of the two-by-eights of almost 90 years ago.
A host of other changes are being made in between as the Lorraine rises from the ashes of the fire to a new life as an office block.
A lot of the changes being made are determined by modern building codes, says Richardson. Most of the changes to code were made for safety reasons.
When you’re saving an old building, you try to keep its character as much as possible, he adds.
After 85 years hidden behind lath and plaster — the thin boards covered with plaster that were the era’s equivalent of drywall — the Lorraine’s brick walls will be exposed in the modern offices.
The office windows will look like old-fashioned apartment windows, but they’ll be modern metal construction and won’t open, to keep the air-conditioning system sealed.
The air conditioning will flow down the old freight elevator shaft, which was closed off years ago for storage. Building heat will come up the old shaft in the winter, and it will also serve as the channel for the modern fibre-optic network.
A modern elevator will be installed, closer to the front door. The new shaft is concrete block, while the old was clay blocks with concrete poured outside them. But the old shaft wouldn’t do for a modern building.
“I don’t know if you could get a cab that small,” says Richardson. “Even if you could, it wouldn’t be very functional for a four-storey office.”
The new lobby will extend from the front door to the elevator, deeper than the small vestibule of bygone decades.
A few classic, small hexagonal tiles remain in the vestibule. The main floor hallway past the vestibule is still covered in linoleum installed over the years. Some old marble work also remained in the vestibule; it’s being restored. Other period items such as terra cotta decorations will help retain the character of the early 20th century.
By the end of February, tenants will be able to start decorating their spaces. And life will begin to return to a vintage building.
General Properties Ltd. of Calgary reported cash flow of six cents per share for the nine months ending Sept. 30.
The commercial real estate holding and development company had cash flow of $282,854 from operating revenue of $979,939 and a gain of $48,665 from the sale of an acre of development land.
Company president Robert Knight says the firm owns two properties in Regina and property along Macleod Trail south.
It is also half-owner of property in the Sunridge area, including the Chapters store and Cineplex movie theatre sites.
General Properties trades on the Canadian Venture Exchange as GPL. It closed Friday down one cent at 10 cents.
Compaq Canada Corp. has officially opened its new offices in four floors of the Compaq Tower, 715 5th Ave. S.W.
Compaq originally took two floors of the building four years ago. About 325 people work at the site.
