KITCHENER — Heritage planners are recommending that Kitchener allow the demolition of the distinctive Sears building at Fairview Park mall, even though it has heritage significance.

Cadillac Fairview, which owns the mall and the vacant Sears store, had filed a notice of intention to demolish the facade of the building as part of ambitious redevelopment plans that will transform the mall and add at least two new office buildings, along with additional retail space and a multi-level parking garage.

The 140,000-square-foot Sears building is a major feature of the mall but it became vacant early in 2018 after the store closed. The store opened in 1965 before the rest of the mall was completed. Its distinctive facade of ribbed, precast concrete isn't protected with a heritage designation, but is listed on the city's register of properties of heritage value.

Under heritage rules, the owner must give the city 60 days' notice if it wants to demolish the building, which it did on Oct. 16. Heritage staff are recommending that the city allow the demolition to go ahead. That could happen as soon as mid-December.

The Sears building has enough merit to warrant protection, says Leon Bensason, Kitchener's co-ordinator of heritage planning, but he adds that Cadillac Fairview has made it clear it's not interested in seeing the building designated.

"Rather than risk a confrontational situation and potentially jeopardize achieving heritage interests, the opportunity exists to work with the property owner ... in achieving a compromise acceptable to both the property owner and the city," Bensason says in a report that goes to the city's heritage committee next Tuesday.

The redevelopment would demolish almost the entire original facade of the Sears building, saving a section of the facade along a walkway on the north side of the building facing the rest of the mall. The six-metre, white vertically lined panels that cover all four walls of the building each weigh 7,250 kilograms, topping 2.5-metre-high walls of dark green glazed brick.

Retaining a section of the facade, even in a spot that's not highly visible, could be the start of a conservation effort that might lead to saving more of the original facade, and possibly reusing it elsewhere in the redevelopment, the report says.

The first phase of the redevelopment would gut the Sears building and fill it with shops that face out onto the parking lot rather than in to the mall, and include a four-storey retail and office building and two standalone restaurants close to Fairway Road. Later phases would add a parking garage, two more office buildings and up to four residential towers to the north, along Kingsway Drive.

The redevelopment will completely change the look of the Sears building, replacing the precast concrete with red brick and metal, and plenty of large windows. As a nod to the area's industrial past, the redevelopment would include a tall chimney next to the Sears building, and a replica of an old-fashioned water tower beside the restaurants.

A study for the owner by +VG Architects acknowledges the Sears building is significant both as "a unique example of the Kennedy Era International style of architecture in the area," and because the construction of the mall marked the beginning of the move away from downtown retail shopping.

But the repetition of the precast panels is "relentless," it says, and the current "monolithic" design wouldn't work for individual shops.

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