I hope you all read the article in the Globe and Mail about Greg Frewin. It had some great information on him and how he ended up in Niagara Falls.
There were also some unexpected interesting tidbits. One of those was information about who owns the land. In a previous posting, Dan and Rick had a brief exchange about the building next to the Greg Frewin Theatre that has been under construction for a while. The Globe and Mail article says that future hotel, the theatre, and the Days Inn & Suites are all owned by Ashak Merani. If you look at this Google Maps screenshot, it looks like Mr. Merani owns that entire city block.
A Google search for Mr. Merani’s name brought up a few interesting hits:
- His company is (or at least was) 1174757 ONTARIO INC. He is also president (or at least was) of Niacan Ltd. I think one company became the other.
- He was an investor in the TV station that was proposed for the region, TVN
- Before renovating the property where the Greg Frewin Theatre is, it held an entertainment facility called CyberPort. There were some legal problems with the contractors and CyberPort.
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That building being the old Borden’s Dairy building (as you can see from the milk bottle shaped part of the roof, which I always thought looked like a Simpsons nuclear power plant smoke stack as a kid). I love the look of this building so I hope they maintain that part of it. It looks like the construction’s just been to clean it up and renovate the interior so far.
Did anyone ever visit the Cyberport, when it was? I used to park in the parking lot behind the theater where the apartments were (free parking, noone knew of)… and I never really saw any crowds or cars or even any life while that Cyberport was open. After a couple of years, the for-sale sign went up “zoned for tourism”… and we all knew what happened next.
As for the building to the left of it, wasn’t it a bar/restaurant a few years back? That whole block only a few years ago was just completely dead and clashed with the rest of Clifton Hill.
I hope that the owner really makes it a turn-around with the success of the Greg Ferwin Theater.
It was a bar for a while called Backstage that was apparently a live music venue (which, in my opinion, this city desperately needs). I’m not sure what it was before that, as it was probably a few things since it was the Dairy.
Yes I caught the Boutique Hotel and owner part as well Graham. I actually emailed Greg himself that night to tell him how nice it is to have that kind of entertainment in Niagara. The hotel is starting to really take shape.
The bar was also known as Mercury Night Club.