Holeproof London

The building located at 203 Bathurst Street in London is known as the "City Centre Storage" building, but only a limited number of Londoners know that this was at one time a textile factory and a very important industry.


In 1919, American industrialist Carl Freschl constructed this 4-storey, 9,000-square-metre structure on the corner of Bathurst and Clarence to house his hosiery business, Holeproof Hosiery Co. This company's flagship factory was in Milwaukee but was expanding by leaps and bounds. Holeproof already had a smaller operation in London from 1911 but needed to expand their production capabilities. As Mr. Freschl needed to received his raw materials and shipped his finished goods for this factory by rail, the location was expertly chosen just south of the rail yards. The business at one time employed 500 Londoners.


Although this was a great location, in 1933, the City of London closed the railroad grade crossing road at Clarence which put a dent into some of the logistics of Holeproof. So much so, Holeproof sued for $ 50,000 which during the depression was no small amount of money. This eventually wormed its way to the Supreme Court of Canada.


Textile company Kayser-Roth later bought the company and ran it until 1989 when the factory closed. Approximately a year later, Dick Berdan purchased the building for commercial storage and and is now known as City Centre Storage. Mr. Berdan converted the upper floors to accomodate 770 storage units to self-storage units while the main floor houses an antique furniture store.