Battle shaping up over fate of derelict building where Pearson once lived
Lester B. Pearson’s former home on Cobourg Street is a dump.
Maybe 60 years ago it was a pleasant place for Pearson to escape the bustle of Parliament Hill.
Today, it’s pretty much falling down.
“An intervention is impossible. Where do you even begin?” architect Judah Mulalu said this week, as he took the Citizen on a soggy tour through 231 Cobourg St. in Sandy Hill.
The Uganda High Commission owns the red brick, two-storey building at the corner of Wilbrod Street. They’re asking the city for permission to tear down the building and build a new one to house their diplomatic mission.
Others in the community believe the building is worth saving.
Mulalu estimated it would cost $4 million to renovate and retrofit the building to make it usable again, while a demolish-and-build project would be in the ballpark of $2.5 million.
The high commission hired Ten2-Four Architecture to quarterback the project.
Mulalu, Ten-2-Four’s principal, and Nazli Salehi, a partner at the firm, started the tour in the basement, where the concrete floor shows signs of buckling and the bricks are breaking away from the mortar on the wall.
The building is obviously slouching to one side, they explained, and there’s no reasonable way to save it when the damage is so extensive.
Floors are wet from water infiltration and a broken pipe. Virtually every room has a crack in the wall. The carpet in one hall is squishy and the whole building is musty.
Everyone, including the architects, seems to be on the same page now about Pearson living in the building in the 1950s before he became prime minister. There was some skepticism at first, since a city heritage consultant didn’t note the Pearson connection on the official records in 2010, but the heritage branch today acknowledges Pearson lived there between 1955-58.
Pearson became leader of the opposition in 1958 and was elected prime minister in 1963. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957.
The Cobourg Street building, which was bought by the Uganda High Commission in 1985 to use as a diplomatic office, is in a heritage protection zone and must follow specific rules if it’s demolished and a new structure is constructed.
The architect’s plan is to use hallmarks of the current design, such as the flat roof and red bricks, in the new, taller building.
While the heritage expert on the development team believes the building only marginally contributes to the heritage character of the community, Action Sandy Hill has written to politicians arguing the building is worth saving because of the Pearson connection.
“We appreciate it as much as they do, but on empirical evidence it’s tough to justify the cost,” Mulalu said.
The sorry state of the building raises questions about why the high commission simply didn’t take better care of it. The City of Ottawa, increasingly protective of its heritage structures, is on high alert for buildings on track for “demolition by neglect.”
Mulalu listed the owner’s efforts to maintain the exterior of the building, such as replacing bricks and patching up cracks, but the bones of the building are breaking.
“It’s tantamount to putting a Band-Aid on a compound fracture,” Mulalu said. “It was a matter of time.”
The city is accepting feedback on the development application until Monday. jwilling@postmedia.com twitter.com/JonathanWilling