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James House | 390 Bank St. | 34m | 9s | Urban Capital + Taggart | RAW

This is off topic but these photos just made me realize that the Staples building has a completely phony floating façade! Yowzers.
Is the entire third floor fake? That is super well done. Never would have guessed.
 
Seems more likely that it was really a three-storey building and only the facade was kept when they consolidated various properties into the one-storey Staples.

Edit: I seem to be correct. I checked the historical photos on GeoOttawa, and it seems to have happened in the 90s.

1991:
1722439161565.png

1999:
1722439233633.png


PS: I have been in and past this building hundreds of times before but never really looked. The heritage facades are the only bits of the old buildings remaining; otherwise they were completely demolished, and replaced with a steel-frame big box store. It was a complete facadectomy.
 
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Noticed that on Geo the other day as well. For what it's worth, they did do a pretty good job preserving the facade, but you can tell by the window's something's wrong. Kind of sad.
 
Yup, fairly inoffensive blank wall. Hope the current proposal next door goes through as designed.
 
Maybe it is still in? That doesn't look 'finished' to me and could just be the framework for whatever they will do to finish it/bolt whatever onto it. Guess we will see!
 
Sigh... without the visual interest from the brick lattice this is just yet another midrise who's main architectural feature is poorly placed expansion joints. Hope that they're able to find good tenants for the retail, would hate to see it sit empty on the speculation that one day someone will pay $60/sqft for it.
 

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