Yet today we refer to the Janion Hotel even though the connection to Mr. Janion is tenuous and the hotel only operated for a couple of years.

Are you talking about the Permanent Loan Building or the Bank of Toronto Building or the Toronto-Dominion Building?

If you like we can meet to discuss over beer at the City Lights Building on Swift Street, or on Government Street at the Bank of B.C. or the Bank of Montreal.

Just be warned, when I'm on Government Street I like to browse the bookshelves in the Royal Bank of Canada. And I can't resist buying some chocolate creams at Wilkerson's Jewellery.

Not convenient for you? We could meet up outside the Steamship Terminal or the wax museum. Or the Hotel Douglas or the Rialto.

Or by the Victoria Conservatory of Music. Or Nelson's music. Or the Pantages Theatre.

Or I can meet you by the Coronet.

Or by the Montreal Trust Building on Fort (the one with the big mosaic). Didn't you used to live in the Montreal Trust Building?

I just have to do some shopping at the HBC first.

Instead of trying to hide the buildings in amongst some alien towers, imaginative developers could seize the opportunity to celebrate that history...

This sort of deliberate misrepresentation just isn't funny anymore. No towers are currently proposed, and a review of past proposals will demonstrate that only ONE concept ever involved a tower (and a single short tower at that).

Suffice it to say, if 5- or 6-story buildings are towers then Victoria's old town is full of towers. And yet Victoria's old town ISN'T full of towers. The critics want to have things both ways.

The call for more imagination on the part of developers is really insulting to anyone who has any familiarity with this saga. The redevelopment proposals have been numerous and they've ranged wildly in architectural style, massing, and sheer size. You don't need to take my word for it. You can easily check the past concepts for yourself.

The myriad past concepts illustrate (literally) how misplaced these notions are about supposedly unimaginative NJ developers. Rather, it's the overly imaginative critics that have been the real problem. They continue to criticize monstrous redevelopment concepts that exist only in their minds.

I still haven't seen or heard anything that would lead me to believe the forces of eternal opposition have ever bothered to seriously consider any of the proposals to save those old buildings. After ~12 frickin' years! This entire saga has fully exposed the falseness at the core of "heritage preservation" politics in Victoria.

I just have to do some shopping at the HBC first.

But from there I could walk a few blocks down Douglas to meet you at the Eaton's Centre.

This entire saga has fully exposed the falseness at the core of "heritage preservation" politics in Victoria.

Just in case there was still a shred of doubt after the JSB saga...