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Will Today's Condos be Around 150 Years From Now?

There are 7 baseball fields that are older than the SkyDome, 2 are currently being replaced and 2 are Wrigley Field and Fenway Park from 1914 and 1912. Even if we get a new baseball diamond, I think the SkyDome will remain a sports/entertainment venue for somewhile.


The Argo's have options to stay there until 2019. Also, it'd be an upgrade from BMO Field for Toronto FC. Another recreational conversion would be to replace the multi-storey quadplex of ice rinks that were proposed for the Lower Don Lands.

Well there were proposals to replace Fenway just a decade ago (thankfully they didn't go ahead), and there have been recent proposals to renovate Wrigley as well. So even the most cherished of stadiums aren't necessarily considered untouchable.

I'm not sure the cost to renovate skydome to become something else (a multi-storey arena complex for example) would be something various levels of government would want to be involved in. The sheer size of the Dome would make it very difficult to renovate without a massive sum of money, far greater than the amount proposed for the multi-storey quad-plex (which in itself was a dumb idea). The Gardens reno is at 60million, and it's 5 times smaller than the Skydome (just roughly in google earth the Garden is 8800m squared while the Dome is 47,000m squared). Obviously part of that stems from the challenges they faced with renovating such an old building, but it would be fair to say that the Dome would easily be a 9-figure reno.

Both the Jays and Argos will be there for another decade easily, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's talk within the next 15 years of a new stadium simply because most teams seem to get the itch around the 35 year mark. I'm not sure it's a viable option for TFC but it's hard to project how successful they and MLS will be that far down the road.
 
They've played the Manchester United and Celtic friendly there, and it was almost as good as the real thing (football in England that is). It's definately an increase in seating if the MLS were to double or triple attendance in the next couple decades. UFC 129 sold 55,000 seats and generated $11m, both UFC North American records. As for the quad-iceplex, I was thinking of the SkyDome with 4-5 ground level rinks to replace the playing field. The only reason the other one is multi-stories is to reduce the footprint to fit the area.
 
Well, I think the TFC point is up in the air. Sure, you can hold one off games between huge European Clubs and have a great atmosphere (having been to EPL games, TFC's current crowd provides as good an atmosphere already), but will the game grow to allow for a season's worth of demand at 55k? I don't think it's projectable at this time anyways so we'd just be debating the popularity of soccer in Canada which hasn't really gone far beyond youth participation.

UFC was a huge event but again, you can't hold those all the time. The fact it was the first one with a massive card and pent up demand really helped. That's not to say the next one won't sell out and the next one after that and son on, but scarcity drives demand.

As for the idea of 4 or 5 rinks on the ground level, it's an interesting idea but I wonder how difficult it would be to keep a building of that size cold enough to maintain those rinks? I know they did it in Tampa when the Lightning joined the league and played out of the Trop where the Rays play, but I don't know the specifics of how easy or difficult it was to maintain the rink there. I guess my point is, any renovation to skydome, no matter its new use will be a pretty big undertaking.
 
I think a lot of these cheap glass buildings will be crumbling within 20 years.

Glass curtain walls have something like a 25-50 year lifespan depending on their quality (1 year in Murano). Condo fees pay into capital reserve funds which anticipate their replacement and upkeep.

Modern regulation around condo capital reserves is fairly strict, and like much of law, these regulations were drafted in response to greed, negligence, and harm. When board members strain against compliance with these regs, you can be almost certain they want to sell in the shorter term and avoid fees.
 
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Daniels has used it, not sure how prevalent it's use is though. For architectural and landscaping features such as trim, cornices, corbels etc it is sometimes used in place of plaster, concrete and stone. They cut to shape, apply some kind of plaster over, a lick of paint and voila- looks like real stone! ....sorta.
 
The Prince's Gates at the Exhibition Grounds are basically all styrofoam now covered in a thin layer of concrete. Cheaper to rebuild them that way.

Really? I was under impression that the original concrete and stone were carefully restored, with the columns dismantled and treated in a warehouse before being re-erected.
 
Sorry, my mistake the columns are stone but the statue at the top is plastic sprayed to look like stone:

Wikipedia said:
During the fall of 1986 the Winged Victory statue was taken down and found to be seriously deteriorating. It was subsequently replaced by a glass-reinforced polymer plastic copy in 1987, designed and fabricated by Engineered Plastics Inc. of Oakville, Ontario.
 
As long as developers aren't cutting as many corners as they do in China:

China is constructing more than 21.5 billion sq. ft. (2 billion sq m) of new property every year, gobbling up some 40% of the world's total cement and steel production for buildings whose average lifespan is estimated at only 25 years to 30 years

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2030548,00.html#ixzz1UpWPTSjR

I would imagine that many of today's condos will one day be considered inefficient, too costly to retrofit and unworthy of heritage designation. Many of the commie-block rentals erected in the 60's and 70's will probably be coming down within the next 30 years.
 
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Well, here in Toronto, the Tower Renewal scheme is refitting them.

Or have the toxic Frick and Frack cancelled that too?
 

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