114-year-old Gresham Block torn down in Calgary's Inglewood neighbourhood

Calgary's Gresham Block is being demolished this week, bringing an end to a hallmark of the city's Inglewood neighbourhood for more than a century.

The 114-year-old building was a key piece of the history of Calgary's commercial core.

The three-storey, Edwardian-style brick structure sat on the south side of Ninth Avenue S.E., and was long home to both residential and commercial units.

The city describes the Gresham Block as a local landmark, a building that was once an integral part of the commercial activity that made Ninth Avenue S.E. Calgary's high street. It's included in Calgary's Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources, a list of sites where preservation is considered to be the greater benefit of Calgarians.

The Gresham Block was initially occupied by Canadian Pacific Railway employees, and its main-floor commercial units were home to grocers, a department store, meat market, cafe and more, for over a century.

But its listing on the local Inventory of Evaluated Historic Resources provided no legal protection to halt demolition

Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, who represents the neighbourhood, is disappointed to see the building go. But he traces issues with the building's maintenance and future back to the 1990s when Inglewood received funding from the federal government's Main Street Program but the Gresham Block didn't participate.

"Its opportunity 25, 30 years ago to sort of get its feet underneath it was not taken, and it is in a state of total disrepair and really can't be salvaged," Carra said. 

The Ward 9 representative said he hopes its demolition will kick-start conversations on the best way to preserve Inglewood's heritage buildings. He also said he's hopeful about a new building to replace it that can help take on Calgary's housing crisis.

But what's unusual about the Gresham Block's demolition is that didn't occur with a concurrent development permit for a new building in its place, Heritage Calgary CEO Josh Traptow said.

Traptow worries this practice can lead to old, beloved buildings being demolished and sitting vacant for years or turned into parking lots, which happened to the Cecil Hotel in East Village after it was torn down 10 years ago.

The possibility for a heritage building to be replaced with a vacant lot represents a gap in city policy, which could be cleaned up, Traptow argued.

"Whether they're heritage or not, having a vacant site sit there is probably not the best use of that piece of land at the end of the day," Traptow said.

But on Tuesday, Carra said he understands a 200-unit building with a potential grocery store on the main floor will go up in the Gresham Block's place, built by a proven developer partnering with the former building's owners. He didn't provide further details on the site's future.