Every morning on my way to work, I walk past The Abbey apartment building as it is slowly chipped away at in preparation for demolition. This isn’t a big surprise, I have written about the building that will replace it. You can read that article here. Compared to a lot of great buildings we have lost in the last few years in Victoria (Pluto's Diner and The Royal Bank Building just to name two) this one is hurting more than those and I have pondered over why that is over the last few months. While I have a biased opinion, I don’t think it is because I am getting old and just don’t like change, indeed, I think that I quite often celebrate changes to the status quo. Online that line you can read my article on Centennial Square here. I think it has more to do with how I think about cities and the way they make me feel. I thought I would dig into that a little in this article fully knowing that it is a bit of a self-centred indulgence.

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There are a lot of good reasons to be both for and against the replacement of The Abbey. We will definitely see a net increase in homes and those homes are going to be of a higher quality than the ones that are there now. It is going expand the amount of retail in this area on the edge of downtown and start to make it more of a destination. The new building is a great looking building in my opinion, and will add to the visual interest of the neighbourhood. However, it is also taking away an old building with a long history in the city. The loss of the Abbey will mean that all of those stories of those that lived there will be that much more ephemeral, and finally and for me most importantly, it is knocking out one of the urban teeth of the city. Don’t worry I will explain this.

All of those reasons to both keep it and let it go are valid positions to hold. We do need more homes and I am really looking forward to having more retail right here. That said, I am also always hesitant when any building is being torn down, as I want to ensure that we have at least thought about it from a reuse perspective and its historical value first, but of course, it is the last point on those urban teeth, that I feel most strongly about and what I want to talk about here.

What do I mean when I say that the city is losing one of its urban teeth? When I first moved to Victoria in the mid 1990’s, I found a city that had amazing pockets of urbanity surrounded by some early to mid 20th century Radiant City and Garden City examples and later 20th century suburbanism, as well as just a lot of parking lots. I mean parking lots were everywhere. It is really hard for most people to imagine just how many parking lots there were around the city, but chances are if there is a building that you see now near downtown, no building was torn down to build it, but rather a parking lot was dug up. The current state at the time really frustrated me. You would see a great urban building and to its left a big open parking lot and to its right a newer building with half an acre of grass between it and the sidewalk. It felt like in some ways we were walking away from being a city despite the great opportunity we had to make Victoria a dense, urban, pedestrian paradise. The way I saw the city back then was as a huge open mouth with hundreds teeth missing. Every time a new building was built that took away a parking lot and added to the urban form it was like the gap in smile being filled in. Which brings me back to why the loss of the Abbey maybe has me feeling a little sad.

The Abbey has always been one of those perfect urban teeth. A solid early 20th century apartment building that goes right out to the lot line and meets the sidewalk. It has visual interest because of how it has been adapted over the years. When you walk along next to its facade, you feel like you are in a city. The space closes in around you and gives you a hug.

It was originally a grocery store on the main floor and one of the few interesting aspects of its deconstruction has been the reappearance of the iron columns at the corner of Quadra and Fisgard that denote the original entrance to the store (Thanks to Rob Randall for pointing this out to me). I have always really loved the almost random placement of the windows along the Fisgard facade that seemed to tell the stories of those that lived inside more than other buildings with a more regular pattern. With the exception of the terrible ground floor of the Sandpiper building at the southwest corner, this intersection already felt complete and urban. This has been even more true recently with the addition of the grocery store across the street. If the proposed building was being built on almost a dozen other lots within a two block radius, I would be the loudest champion of it. I do get that the economics of development means that the new building wouldn’t necessarily make financial sense even half a block from here, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be upset about it. As I said in my last article about this proposal, it also makes me very worried about some of the other ‘perfect urban teeth’ in the neighbourhood, especially Rosedale Manor and the Park Mansions. One can only assume that if it makes sense to tear down the Abbey, that it will soon make sense to do the same with these other city treasures.

I am almost resigned to the loss of the Abbey, though as I have said, there is a part of me that wishes that they could just bring it down in an afternoon so I could get past it more quickly. I do appreciate the attempt at trying to recycle as much as possible from a pragmatic perspective, but on an emotional level I am just slowly watching the removal of a perfectly good tooth.

I would love to hear all of your thoughts on urban change and how you see the loss of the Abbey (or why you are excited for the new building). Let me know in the comments.