The Turner building is a structure full of memories for many Victorians. The memories are worth preserving. The building? Probably not.
The building on Richmond Road near the Royal Jubilee Hospital dates from the 1940s. It was home to a convenience store and a diner known as Ian鈥檚 Jubilee Coffee Stop on the ground floor, with four apartments above.
Because of its proximity to the Royal Jubilee Hospital, nurses and other medical personnel were regulars at the coffee shop with its long counter and low stools, as were many others who recall ordering burgers and milkshakes from the quick-witted and bowtie-bedecked Ian Turner. The roots go deep 鈥� Turner took over the operation begun by his mother, Catherine, who first opened a corner store on Birch Street in 1917.
Ian Turner retired in 2001, and the building has been vacant ever since. In 2005, amid concerns over the building鈥檚 deteriorating condition, the Turners and others examined options for revitalizing the building, but those efforts came to naught. In September, a 3.7-metre section of wall fell off the second storey, and now the city has said the Turner family must come up with a plan within 28 days to restore the building or raze it.
A wood-frame building beset by water damage and mould is likely too far gone to save.
What made the Turner building special was what went on inside it, and that value will be preserved in memories, not in a building that has reached the end of its life.
