Demolition of historic downtown brewery underway Monday
CBC
Demolition is underway on a number of historic properties that once housed operations for the Kent Brewery.
The yellow brick buildings on Ann Street near the Richmond Street train tracks date back to the mid-1800s.
On Monday, demolition equipment was on site next to a hole in the ground where the structure at 179 Ann St. once stood.
The demolition was controvertial when York Development applied and won the right to start work on a 22-storey student apartment building with 214 units. The old brewery had been designated a heritage site three years earlier, and advocates fought to keep it standing.
According to the London Region branch of Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO), the Kent Brewery was built in 1859 as the city's third largest brewery, before closing in 1916 due to prohibition.
The buildings would go on to be used by various owners until York bought it. In June, London city councillors voted 11-to-3 in favour of the teardown so long as the developer met several conditions.
Those conditions include carefully removing things like bricks, light fixtures, wooden window frames, doors and more, so that they can be used for future "commemorative installations," according to the City Hall report council voted on.
Those features, it said, should be designed to "include direct and specific reference to the Kent Brewery, the Brewer’s House, and the workers’ cottages, as well as their interrelationship as a Victorian industrial complex."
While work was underway at two of the primary addresses connected to the brewery on Monday, the brewery building itself at 197 Ann St. appeared to remain untouched.
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