Yes way!

Nearly seven years after fire damage forced tenants to evacuate the Ches-Way Apartments, the once-derelict block in the Wolseley-West Broadway nexus has undergone a complete interior renovation and is nearing full capacity.

A classic, four-square house connected to an abnormally skinny brick building, the Ches-Way Apartments were named in the 1930s for their location at the intersection of Chestnut Street and Honeyman Avenue — a stretch that was once a segment of Broadway.

For more than eight decades, the apartment block provided much-needed rental density in one of the city’s most mature neighbourhoods.

In the years since the fire, architects Chris Knight and Tom Monteyne, who work on Sherbrook Avenue and live within a short walk of the Ches-Way, grew increasingly concerned with the block’s ongoing vacancy, which they viewed as a threat to neighbourhood stability.

If the building was left boarded up, the partners were convinced it would become a teardown, and if that were to happen, the Ches-Way — which, like many older apartment blocks, doesn’t conform to modern zoning bylaws — could never be rebuilt in the same footprint.

But as the building stood, the Ches-Way — for all its peculiarity and novelty — was becoming an eyesore facing the fate of demolition by neglect.

“I was probably the chief complainant about the building,” says Knight, who, upon discussing the Ches-Way’s future with Monteyne, learned that both of them were interested in finding a solution.

So in 2022, the architects put in an offer to purchase the building from the credit union, finalizing the deal in April 2023 and beginning the resurrection two Novembers ago.

“It was a ruin,” says Monteyne. “It was frightening.”

The primary structure — a cast-concrete frame, unusual for the era of the building’s construction — was sound, but everything else was beyond recovery.

The fire, which had destroyed the building’s wooden fire escape, was only a partial culprit: years of freeze-thaw cycles, combined with a malfunctioning sump pump, led to increased humidity levels, resulting in extensive rot and mould.

“It was terribly disgusting. I’ve seen a lot of bad buildings. This was one of the worst,” says Knight.

As soon as renovation work, which reduced the number of apartments from 15 to 12, began, the architects say the support from neighbouring properties was effusive and frequent; like Knight and Monteyne, they were concerned that the building would remain one of the more than 700 vacant buildings registered in the city.

“The neighbours wanted to give us a parade,” says Monteyne.

“In this case there was no NIMBYs,” adds Knight, referring to negative types who say, “Not in my back yard” to new development.

“What we heard was YIMBY.”

As work continued throughout the last year, the architect-operators, who at times worried they would fall into a money pit, grew more convinced that their investment was solid, an injection of modernized housing through “missing middle” development.

Expanding the lifespan of existing infrastructure, rather than demolishing it to make way for lower-density housing, was a way for the partners to participate positively in city-building, they say.

Two weeks after the project received its occupancy permit in October, the new Ches-Way Apartments were half occupied, with more tenancy agreements in the works.

Rents start at around $1,100 per month, in keeping with the affordability guidelines provided by the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporations, says Knight.

“A lot of the buildings I research tend to be in the inner city, and when they get boarded up, it doesn’t tend to be a good story,” says local blogger and historian Christian Cassidy, who has written about the Ches-Way for his blog West End Dumplings.

“A lot of apartment blocks on Maryland or Sherbrook have become empty lots, so it’s nice when you get these wins. We often concentrate on the buildings that burn down — those are the ones that get attention. It’s very nice to make a big deal when one gets resurrected. Let’s hope the Ches-Way is around for another century.”

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca