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The Tenor (10 Dundas St E, Ent Prop Trust, 10s, Baldwin & Franklin)

  • Thread starter billy corgan19982
  • Start date
notyouagain:

I am not sure if PenEquity had built the Oakville Centrum when the deal with the city was inked, but regardless, the city should have been far more careful, especially given the developer has so little experience. Ditto Ryerson, considering they got very little out of the transfer of air rights above the parking garage - and definitely not the theatre space originally intended for the ballooning enrolment/double cohort.

What a mess all around. Kyle's head should quite frankly rolled for this one.

AoD
 
Alvin - the City was just not into debating the finer points of architecture for commercial buildings at the time, and the core was in the doldrums when this company appeared almost saviour-like with promises to remake this corner into something shiny and new.

In the end, I say 99% of the blame ultimately rests with PenEquity for cheaping out time and time again on what could reasonably have been expected to be a leading edge development based on all the promises they were making and the renderings they were concocting. With such an incredibly highly visible location, PenEquity could have stepped up to the plate and made a name for themselves as an industry leader if they had taken the architecture here seriously. Instead they have shamed themselves in perpetuity with this pile of welded trash.

42
 
Kyle Rae, however, should wear some of the shame and blame for this - it was his baby, and he kept defending PenInequity even when they had the weed-infested pile hidden behind the L'Oreal ads for so long.

The City did not do any due dilligence when they picked PenInequity and had little to no leverage. It's not as bad as what Mel tried to do with Union Station, but it's the same kind of thinking.

My blame allocation: 5% Ryerson, 35% Kyle Rae/City, 60% PenInequity.
 
I like TLS (Metropolis) because it is doing what it’s supposed to do (I guess that’s why everyone is calling it utilitarian). It has lots of space for advertising, it lights up the square with its mega backlit ads and LED. It’s huge and creates a nice street wall along Dundas and a border to the Square. Honestly this building was never intended to be an architectural masterpiece, it was meant to be a big building covered in ads. In that there is no failure to be found. Could the ads have been more dynamic, yeah I guess. But then it could always happen. If a true masterpiece would have been created how would everyone have felt about it then being plastered in ads?

Metropolis is what it is. And it does what it does.

The only fault lies in Pen Equity for taking so long to build the thing and the city for allowing them to dilly dally……
 
No more white ads PLEASE!
I hope that the centre ad is one big advertisement, and not several, which it likely will be.
Time to now start adding "frills" to the top. This sucker needs a crown make it's tackyness over the top.
 
If you Google the words "PenEquity" and "Metropolis" this thread is the 20th page in their page ranking system. If you Google the words "PenEquity" and "Toronto Life Square" this thread is the 19th in their page ranking system. Too bad it wasn't a bit higher, but that still makes me happy. Moreover, a lot of the stuff that comes up before this thread (in Google) is other articles and blogs critical of the place.
 
I understand the city is just starting to get the design review process started but since the project isn't fully completed yet, there should be some pressure from the city on Pen Equity. If they have the power now to affect the plans for Aura down the street, they should at least be able to pressure Pen Equity to improve the project. It really is a shame that a developer didn't want to push the boundaries in terms of advertising. Imagine the whole side of the building was made up of glass and LED lighting in which advertisers could play movies or animations. For special moments we could give artists access to it to display art on a huge scale. Imagine something like the Nasdaq ticker but 5 times bigger! People would come around the world to see this massive art screen.

Something like the Kunsthaus in Graz Austria but with more density to make it advertising friendly

Kunsthaus-Graz-Nacht-Medienfassade.jpg
 
Jdot said:
No more white ads PLEASE!
I hope that the centre ad is one big advertisement, and not several, which it likely will be.
Time to now start adding "frills" to the top. This sucker needs a crown make it's tackyness over the top.
Click to expand...

That's the cheese that may have been cheapened (read, eliminated). I hope I'm wrong.
 
Not allowed? They have never asked the city.

While its easy to blame the city for this, they did not build it or design it. The architects, who actually went to school and were granted a license to build buildings, have a professional and moral (not to mention aesthetic) duty to build structures that are not 'galactic coal carriers.' There should be a review committee for their licenses.
 
alklay said:
Not allowed? They have never asked the city.

While its easy to blame the city for this, they did not build it or design it. The architects, who actually went to school and were granted a license to build buildings, have a professional and moral (not to mention aesthetic) duty to build structures that are not 'galactic coal carriers.' There should be a review committee for their licenses.
Click to expand...

They probably would have done it had they been allowed. The city required that most of the ads be on the south face.

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/2006/agendas/committees/te/te060613/it054.pdf
 
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