First Canadian Place is shedding its skin

It didn’t come as a surprise that a large chunk of Toronto’s First Canadian Place marble fell off the building a couple of days ago. And despite The Canadian Press story you might have read in the Globe yesterday, it has been happening for years.

To quote U of T architecture professor David Bowick:

“I wouldn’t worry that because this happened once that it’s about to happen again.”

Sorry professor, this isn’t the first incident.

In 2002 I was standing in a board room of law firm McCarthy Tetrault with time to kill. The view was from the 50th or so floor of the TD Bank Tower, facing north towards FCP.

I noticed this discolouration, and asked the lawyer I was with what it was. Turned out it was the yellow “glue” that was to have held the marble to the office tower. We counted over 65 missing pieces. Actual holes where marble had been.

On the glass dome covering a portion of the King Street sidewalk, one could see particles of marble that had fallen, harmlessly, unto the awning.

Over the intervening years, these pieces were replaced. If you look up today, you’ll notice the marble is different colours in places. Those are undoubtedly the pieces that filled the holes we saw that day.

No doubt the City of Toronto will get the receipts of all of the marble repair work that was done by Brookfield (TRZ:NYSE) over the past five years. Shouldn’t be to hard to find out that this is anything but a unique event.

Not a hassle that BMO needs right now, either.

MRM