#1: Canning Factory

Canning Factory

Simcoe, Ontario

   To start off the blog I had to find a place that I've been fascinated with for over a decade: the Simcoe Canning Factory. Sure it's not within the Grand River watershed, but if I'm not going to follow my own directions it's best to do immediately.

  

  It's located just outside of the downtown core of Simcoe and has a style of architecture unlike anything in the area. Currently the factory is completely vacant and surrounded by a massive fence discouraging anyone interested (perhaps to save any windows that remain intact). As a synergic history moment, for a summer I worked at the Waterford Museum some years ago (Waterford being a short distance away from Simcoe) and that building used to be a pickle factory. No doubt those pickles were sent here for canning.

  As a concept this building was my introduction to brown-field redevelopment. Initially in the early 1990's the proposal was to turn the factory into condominiums. From what I remember the suites were selling well, but the investor (or a key money-man) left the country with all the money. Now it just stands as a curiosity piece.

   

  If someone is able to actually turn this factory into a loft system - a style that is incredibly trendy and profitable right now - the water tower has to stay.