Condo-retail complex set for Unionville’s Main Street

Unionville Historical Society, is disappointed that the look
of his heritage town will soon change forever.

By the end of next year, Ed’s Fine Imports, a men’s designer
clothing store, will be torn down to make way for a three-story
condominium and retail complex. Ed’s Fine Imports is located
on Unionville’s Main Street in Markham. Edgar Aradian is store
owner and manager of Ed’s Fine Imports.

“It was my first time getting into business and I was offered
a good location so I signed the lease,” Aradian said.

The condominium will be built in Unionville’s small heritage
preservation district. In the summer of 2005, Jack Valianes had
originally planned to build a hotel and retail complex on the property.
Now he has plans to design and build condominiums instead.

Worsley does not like this new idea.

“You’re changing the look of the town with condos. A
condo complex isn’t going to complement the street,” Worsley
said.

Valianes owns the building that is now Ed’s Fine Imports and
decided he wanted to replace it with condos because the building
holds no heritage status.

“Rather than going into a hotel, which would be a lot of extra
work, I decided to build condos and sell them,” Valianes said.

Maintaining the heritage look

There are currently two buildings on the property where the condos
will be built. One is a heritage building that is a women’s
clothing store and Ed’s Fine Imports, which is not a heritage
building.

Valianes assures the existing heritage building will be incorporated
into the design and finished project by allowing for two separate
buildings to coexist on the same property. Before any actual planning
could be done, Valianes had to first propose the design for his
project to the Unionville Historical Society.

“I needed to go through them for design and parking requirements
to make sure the new building will look more heritage. That’s
their main concern,” Valianes said. “The new building
will have the heritage look to it … everything will be wood
… all the windows will be wood because the historical society
limits the number of windows you have so not everything’s made
out of glass.”

This was news to Worsley. “I was aware of some sort of development
in the area, but I was under the impression they were going to build
a hotel. I am disappointed that condos will be going up instead,”
Worsley said.

Valianes hopes to start building in the spring of 2007 and hopes
to have everything finished by late next year.

“All the plans have been done. I just need a building permit
right now. I should get this in three to four months,” he said.

Demolition is just around the corner

As far as building the original proposed hotel sometime in the
near or distant future in or around Main Street, Valianes remains
uncertain.

“It’s possible,” Valianes said. “It’s
really where and when opportunity knocks.”

Worsley remains uneasy about this idea and doesn’t want to
see so much change. He wonders with so much development happening,
how the heritage look of a well preserved town will be maintained.
“Once you start building, where do you stop?” Worsley
said.

Furthermore, “what building is next to come down?”

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Posted: Oct 22 2006 12:00 pm
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Filed under: News