The numbers

To read the report prepared by Ernie Margetson describing the heritage value of the convenience store in Wellington, please click here.

It’s a good conversation. An important one. But surely the value of the County’s heritage architecture can be considered outside the rigid bounds of dollars and cents. Isn’t it possible, that part of the appeal of living in this community, of the attractiveness of the place, is due to the timelessness of the architecture that line our main streets and country lanes? Of something a bit more uplifting and enduring than pure commerce?

It need not matter that the bounty of old buildings in our midst was due to foresight or constrained economic circumstances. We have been left a legacy. It is a mistake, I think, to demolish century-old buildings with regard only to the financial equation.

That said, it turns out the argument for preserving the convenience store building in Wellington is also the most affordable. It makes the most financial sense.

A letter writer complains that the County has spent as much as $750,000 in acquiring and maintaining this building. The suggestion is that these have been wasted dollars and that sinking anything more into this property will compound the waste.

It is an understandable point of view—held by many folks and council members. But it is wrong.

Rerouting Lane Creek from under the convenience store was always the preferred option by Shire Hall. It was, however, going to be an outrageously expensive option. It had the advantage of removing the liability risk of a culvert running under four buildings (Pomodoro, the convenience store, the pizza store and building in which The General resides) on Wellington’s main corner.

But as the estimates of costs rose and the complexity of digging through this intersection became clearer, the County had a responsibility to look at other options. Originally budgeted at about $600,000 the project cost had ballooned to nearly $2 million—forcing waterworks planners back to the drawing board. More troubling was that no one was quite sure what they would find under the street when the digging machines arrived at Wharf and Main.

So as the prospective costs rose, the dream of re-routing the creek faded while the notion of buying the building, lifting it up, constructing a new culvert underneath, putting it back down in place and then selling it, began to make much more financial sense.

But the County’s waterworks folks wanted a variation on the plan. They had always hated the idea of buildings over their creek. The risk was numbing. This despite the fact that 27 creeks and rivers run underneath Toronto, through culverts—without mayhem or disaster. County waterworks argued that buying the building and demolishing it would still provide a savings—though not nearly as good if they were able to sell the building afterward.

Council agreed to buy the building, paying $620,000 in 2015. Some shake their head at this decision, figuring that the County spent too much. Others grumbled that previous building owners should have been compelled to repair the culvert. Perhaps, but these arguments require us to travel back in time and overlook the eye wateringly expensive cost of rerouting the creek.

Instead, leaving the creek in place and installing a culvert underneath the building, will likely shave a third to a half of the cost of rerouting the creek down Wharf Street.

If we flatten the building and it becomes a dead space, the $620,000 original investment is lost. Forever. If, however, we lift it, and put it back down, and sell it, we will have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars (compared to rerouting the creek) and we will have recovered or part of our investment. Plus a new stream of property taxes.

We cannot go back in time, and frankly it would be a mistake to do anything other than to install a culvert under the store even if we could. The numbers make that clear.

Yet some folks dream of what might arise from this location if the old store were erased. They can’t or refuse to see the value of this building—or more accurately what it can be again. Some folks imagine new, expanded retail and residential opportunities. It is a mirage.

Let us be very clear on this point, if the store is demolished, the likelihood that anything ever gets built on the site shrinks to almost nil. The folks who control what happens on this site want it empty—either a parking lot or a parkette.

Sadly the only choices on the table are between retaining the 120-year-old building or punching a gap into Wellington’s key intersection.

The choice is plain. The numbers make that clear.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca