MARILYN CORNWELL: Marilyn's Photos - June 10 2026

How are some people covered by the media more than others? The specific example that keeps appearing in the Bing feed is Jim Pattison. He seems to be a popular figure on the internet with his "story," the "secrets of success", how to build a $16B empire, and so on. Add to that, he's 96 years old and still working every day. All the pictures of him show a big smile.

Maybe it is because he made the news in January when his Virginia warehouse was going purchased by the U.S. government to be turned into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement "processing facility." There was an uproar and the sale was canceled.

Wouldn't that be a strange experience to sell your house and then find it is has been turned into some sort of detention centre? His warehouse was over 500,000 square feet. Our houses are under 2,000 square feet. We could expect a bed and breakfast, vacation rental, maybe an art gallery, or personal service business like hair salon replacing Gerry's railroad. Here in Grimsby, around the corner, the house was torn down and more hospice space is being built in its place.

We mostly do the reverse - we take factories, schools and churches and turn them into homes. One can find some jails and prisons that have been converted into residential housing. This is called "prison flipping" where mostly historic heritage buildings are conversion targets.

Our famous Kingston Penitentiary has some surplus land being considered for residential development. The Chatham Jail and Courthouse has been slated for conversion into private apartments. That's it for us.

I don't see this as a trend. I think the conversion of these buildings into tourist attractions where tours are given and the historic events of past crimes and criminals are revealed. That's what they did with the old Kingston Penitentiary.

Here's one of the buildings - pretty limestone in a 19th century Neoclassical style. The interior had nice colours, too.