The Globe and Mail has the news that the University of Toronto’s Daniels Faculty of Architecture is considering a new plan to revitalize its facilities – by moving into a new “visual arts, architecture and urbanism complex” in One Spadina Crescent.

The faculty held a competition, won by Office dA with Adamson Associates, to revamp its current facilities. As I wrote a little while back, it won a Progressive Architecture award, but seemed to me like a heavy-handed approach to a building that has lots of soul.

Now that proposal seems likely to die.The new idea(news of which has been circulating for a while) would give a new purpose to One Spadina, an ornate pile that since 1875 has been a seminary, a military hospital (where Amelia Earhart worked as a nurse) and home to the university-owned Connaught Medical Research Labs (the developers of insulin).

It’s now a mishmash of university offices, including a donation bank for eyes. Yes, eyes. I spent many hours there as a student working on the newspaper; sometimes I’d open the front doors for a cabbie delivering a small cooler.

I can attest that the place was, and still is, in Gothic disrepair (despite a partial reno). Adding to the dark atmosphere, a professor was murdered there in 2001, and last year an urban explorer fell to her death.

More importantly, it’s the visual end point for a grand avenue. If you look up Spadina Avenue from downtown, you see this building perched in the middle of a roundabout (Google map). The back end has a series of unimpressive additions and a large parking lot/utility yard. It’s crying out for an expansion, and given the views it would be ideal for a grand, iconic architectural statement. That seems to be what Dean Richard Sommer and the faculty are pushing for – and good for them.