'Rare little gem': Mid-century modern building demolished in Calgary's Beltline
Owner still has plans to build a 24-hour daycare at the site
A small, historic office building on 12th Avenue S.W. called Lacey Court has been demolished, and it's leaving some Calgarians feeling nostalgic for its presence.
Named after owner John Lacey — an oil and gas consultant, arts philanthropist and for many years honorary consul for the Kingdom of Thailand — Lacey Court was built in 1956 and was first occupied by J. Stevenson & Associates, the architects who designed it.
According to Heritage Calgary, Lacey Court was an international-style building with large spans of glazing, slender steel columns and timber beams, strong horizontal lines with a clearly defined modular pattern, designed around a courtyard.
"The building forms part of the edge of a major civic park [Central Memorial Park] and is part of a significant grouping of buildings of successive stylistic eras," reads Heritage Calgary's website.
One local architect says he's especially sad to see Lacey Court go, calling it "a rare little gem."
Ben Klumper, an architect and co-founder of Modern Office of Design + Architecture (MODA), says that when he moved to Calgary in the late 1990s, Lacey Court was one of the first buildings he noticed.
When MODA started a decade ago, it was based in an office in the northwest, but Klumper says he had his sights set on the small, modern Beltline jewel.
Eventually, they became tenants and set up shop in Lacey Court.
"When we had gotten in there, it was a bit of a time capsule that hadn't really been touched probably since the 1970s. There was literally shag carpet on the floor and wood panelling, stuff like that. So we kind of stripped it back down to its original state … where we had our office," said Klumper.
"We were there for six years or so and it was our home. It was a great little building and we loved it and kind of became part of our identity."
Their tenancy came to an end after another group bought the building with plans to transform it into a daycare.
Nav Sidhu, managing director of Sidhu Investment Group, bought Lacey Court for $2.5 million a few years ago. He says his plans to turn the building into a daycare ran into a series of roadblocks and unforeseen delays.
The purchasing group gave MODA six months to leave, so Klumper and his firm moved a couple of blocks west and set up shop on the main floor of a new condo building.
Looking back, Sidhu says they got a little ahead of themselves by giving notice to Lacey Court's tenants so early on.
"Which kind of was probably the biggest downfall about the building," said Sidhu. "Just sitting vacant."
Residents, workers nearby excited for a daycare
The original plan, he says, was to keep the back half of the building and tear down the front. That plan changed when a fire happened in the vacant building in 2023. Sidhu says it caused severe damage to the structural components of Lacey Court, ultimately leading to its demolition earlier this month.
The blaze was blamed on trespassers who lit a fire to stay warm.
"When we looked at it with our structural engineers, our architects, our contractors … it wasn't safe to try and save it, I guess," he said.
"Asbestos, the water damage, and then the break-ins. There's a lot of damage to the interior of the building as well."
Sidhu says the plan to open a 24-hour daycare in a building that resembles the mid-century modern architecture of Lacey Court building remains the same. He hopes it will be valuable for staff at the Sheldon M. Chumir hospital across the street, and that construction is starting right away.
Sidhu anticipates the building will be ready to go in 10 months to a year from now. He says parents living and working in the area are excited about access to child care nearby.
Yet Klumper called the demolition "a sad commentary on the fact that, in the name of progress, I think there are people that would rather bulldoze something and put up something new versus seeing the value and keeping a bit of a historic gem."
What's more, he believes building something that looks the same doesn't mean it will have the same feeling.
"The authenticity of that particular building and its modern style, if it's going to live on, it should live on in people's memories. I think if it is replaced by something, it should be something completely different, but hopefully of equal architectural quality," he said.
"I don't think trying to simulate history would be the way to go there."
With files from Jim Brown