This eye-catching West End apartment building is facing demolition, as owner Paolina Di Stefano-Giancarli has put the property at 5590 St. James Street West up for sale for $1.5 million.
The value of the property lies in its land, apparently. A purchaser would logically demolish the building and build something commercial on the spot.
City authorities have apparently given their blessings to the demolition.
The quirky structure has been the only home on the south side of the street since its construction around 1910.
It was initially inhabited by Robert Brodie's widow Mary Brodie whose family lived in the now-demolished farmhouse across the street in what's now Oxford Park.
(The city demolished that beautiful stone farmhouse across the street after making an unsigned agreement to maintain it for public purposes after the Brodie family sold its farm to the city in 1949 for $75,000.)
There has been talk that this building is haunted but but I asked a resident of one of the four apartments, who told me that she been unbothered by any ghost factory.
The building is set on 13,000 square feet but much of that cannot be built upon as it sits on the cliff, which is unsuitable for construction.
Municipal taxes cost $3,500 annually on a municipal evaluation of $428,000, as the land is evaluated at $181,00 and the building at $247,000.
So the $1.5 asking price is over three times the municipal evaluation.
Coolopolis has previously argued that this building should be protected as a heritage monument.