Seagrave Site Revisited

Seagrave Building Site Today. Outdoor Storage, Junk and Chain Link Fence

It’s been a few months since the Historical Seagrave Building was obliterated by the wrecking ball. We were told at the time that it was all due to a Building Department clerk who was asleep at the switch. We won’t get into why the building wasn’t officially on the Historical Registry. As the story goes, he signed off on the documents and an opportunistic Ashok Sood scrambled to get a demolition company in place for the next morning. By the time witnesses called the travesty in to the City it was too late. A quarter of the building had already fallen. After razing this historical treasure Sood threw up his hands and simply played dumb.

What makes this story particularly odd is that the only building on the site which was left in tact was a rough service building in the back forty. It was also the only part of the site with an actual tenant. That’s obviously all that Sood cared about right from the beginning.

Now the Seagrave site is graced with a slew of spent forklift and Tennant Sweeper carcasses which the tenant, an independent forklift mechanic, bought from the defunct Ford Casting plant for pennies on the dollar. There are many more of these jitneys adorning Sood’s other properties across the street. The sad part is that this equipment had already cycled itself out of safe and cost effective service from the harsh foundry environment. Buying one of these things now would be like buying a car from New Orleans just after Katrina. Reliability and Safety have to be key concerns. The only rightful place where this equipment will garner realistic and top value is Zalev.

Rows of Spent Forklifts from the Ford Foundry

Now, Sood advertises that both sides of Walker Road are available for open storage. As of recent, he has acquired a few ocean containers and a fleet of old Chrysler trailers (pre-Daimler). Throw these in with forklifts, material handling equipment, old buses, trucks, boats and chemicals and that is what area residents and passers by get to see every day. Here is a question for anyone in the know: Does current zoning along this stretch of Walker Road permit “outside storage”? This writer believes not but feel free to chime in. If it does not, then why isn’t the Building Department enforcing?

Illegal Outdoor Storage?

These properties adjoin two residential areas in two wards. They also flank a main North/ South artery which leads visitors to Windsor’s train station, Willistead Park and the Walkerville BIA. Is this really how we want to present ourselves or should we just cave to the profit machinations of one myopic businessman?

As seen from St. Luke

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