The building at 700 Main St. E., Hamilton. Designed in 1962 (built 1963) by Polish émigré and University of Glasgow-trained architect Joseph Bronislaw Singer (1924 - 2013), it was once full of medical offices. It is now being converted into small apartments for independent adults who have come through the criminal justice system.The Globe and Mail
When Hamilton architect Bill Curran began his professional journey in the mid-1980s, he worked on the second floor of 681 Main St. E., about a block away from Gage Park. And, as a fan of Modernist architecture, he’d often catch himself staring at the jaunty blue-and-white building across the street.
“This was my view,” he tells Sue Phipps, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Hamilton Branch, as the pair stands on the sidewalk. “It was a jam-packed, go-go-go medical building; they had all different kinds of medical practitioners in here, a physio clinic and a little pharmacy. It was just a busy little place.”
Today, a drive along that same stretch of Main Street and it’s clear the go-go-go, at some point, got up and went, as there are multiple, small-scale office buildings – many built during the postwar boom years – that are underused, underappreciated, and, in some cases, vacant.
“They’re cheaper than houses [in some cases],” Mr. Curran said during the drive to meet Ms. Phipps at 700 Main St. E. a few minutes earlier. “This one’s been empty for years,” he continued as he pointed to an Edwardian building. “They’re in some use; I don’t know how full that one is,” he said as he pointed to another, “but a lot of them are just barely hanging on.”
Yet, their potential is enormous. Flexible floor plans, large windows, on major thoroughfares and designed by architects, Hamilton’s small-scale office buildings were built to last.
Seven-hundred Main St. E., for example, was designed in 1962 (built 1963) by Polish émigré and University of Glasgow-trained architect Joseph Bronislaw Singer (1924-2013), who came to Canada in 1954. And it’s as good a building as Mr. Singer’s better-known Hamilton Education Centre (1967), which the National Trust for Canada called his “signature work” and wrote that it was “considered by many to be the city’s best example of Mid-Century Modern architecture.” Despite being featured on the Trust’s “Top 10 Endangered Places” list, however, it was demolished in 2012.
Seven-hundred, however, with its thin, round-top windows and graceful arches over wide basement windows at sidewalk level, looks like the Education Centre’s dress rehearsal. Notable, too, is the speckly blue, glazed brick (damaged units could be harvested from the east side, beside the house at No. 704) and the chunky fieldstone at the base. The lobby is large and glassy, with walls of vertical bluish marble tile. Aesthetics aside, the building also “ticked all the boxes” for Ms. Phipps during her search for a property that could be converted into small apartments for independent adults who have come through the criminal justice system.
“We had a list … and we didn’t want to do a huge build,” says Ms. Phipps. “We had about 15 clients that we were struggling to house; we did one walk-through and we [said] ‘I think this is it’ – we were shocked.”
Because the building already sported windows on both front and rear façades, and, also, the first and second floors were already divided, lengthwise, by a corridor, that meant Mr. Curran and his team could create spacious, one-bedroom units – six per floor – each with multiple windows, while retaining the original hallway’s terrazzo floors (the units are about 450 square feet but, with all the light, could pass for 600).
“Other housing providers are doing much smaller,” says Ms. Phipps. “These are real homes [with] full kitchens.”
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To save space, each of the 12 units contains only a shower, but, with a nod to the importance of “hydrotherapy,” there will be a “spa room” with a soaker tub that can be booked in advance, says Ms. Phipps. “Mindfulness activities,” she adds with a smile.
“It’s a very simple conversion, architecturally, compared to some of the other buildings we looked at,” offers Mr. Curran.
Conditions of funding the CMHA received meant that there had to be a percentage of accessible units, and, luckily, a ramp already existed just inside the building’s back door. That meant three barrier-free/fully accessible units could be built in the semi-basement, complete with walkouts, and, additionally, the existing elevator (added a few decades after construction) will allow residents of those units to visit friends on the first or second floor.
The remaining portion of the high-ceilinged, semi-basement area, says Mr. Curran, will contain a common room, a full kitchen for community meals or cooking classes, a lounge space with fireplace, and a few small offices for staff (Ms. Phipps stresses, however, that staff is not there in a “paternalistic” way to monitor the occupants), a few small meeting rooms, a central laundry (there are machines on floors one and two as well), and bicycle storage. Yes, there is room for all of that.
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Outside, most of the asphalt will be replaced with landscaping, since residents don’t own vehicles and only a few CMHA cars will need to park during the day. This will add to the already nice view of the fine homes along Eastbourne Avenue for residents whose rooms face south. And speaking of fine homes, residents with units facing north onto Main Street will gaze along Proctor Boulevard, one of only four streets in Hamilton to feature landscaped centre strips built during the “City Beautiful” movement of the early 20th-century (No. 30 Proctor Blvd. was once the home to 24th lieutenant-governor of Ontario Lincoln Alexander).
With the current affordable housing shortage, 700 Main St. E., is a good reminder of what can be done with a little creative thinking and instructive for those bureaucrats who enjoy tying reams of red tape around potential solutions.
“We talked the city into funding apartment conversions of office buildings, but they only did downtown,” finishes Mr. Curran. “This building is not covered by that grant … so in these off-prime locations, if we can subsidize to help push people, I think that’s a good use of money.”