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CityPlace: St. Jamestown in waiting?

When St. Jamestown was being envisioned and constructed, it was a decidedly middle class/ artist clientel that they were trying to attract. The first decade at the Town' was just that, a vibrant, 'artist' based community - after that it started to slide but those golden years were just as Corb had wanted (i know he wasn't the architect, im not an idiot ;)).

You can't draw lines in the sand around building type as each is equally representative of the time period it was built in. Trying to find generic 'glass box' apartments from the 1960s-70s is as hard as trying to find the slabs of that era being constructed today...Just look at the 427, its LINED with these PIP monstrosities.

The location of Cityplace, though photogenic is also relatively isolated. This has been discussed in detail on UT before so I wont dredge past threads but to summarize: it aint as 'connected' as some seem to think.

I'm not saying that CityPlace is a bad development. My opinion there is quite the contrary. I think that CityPlace, though not without its own faults, is a pretty foreword thinking concept for a city who has neglected its high rise market for close to if not more than ten years...The choice to run in the face of shitty suburban sprawl developers and create such a large complex downtown is commendable. Plus its gonna look damn good once that Signature tower is there!
 
Post

Link to article

Selling milk to 20 shimmering towers
Zosia Bielski, National Post
Published: Friday, November 02, 2007

Brett Desouza is opening no ordinary convenience store. He has hired a prolific nightclub designer to help build it. He's advertising on Facebook. And he's peddling gourmet beef jerky, recycling plastic bags and delivering organic produce by bicycle.

Mr. Desouza, 31, believes these are the perks and details that will help him flourish in City Place, Concord Adex Developments' sprawling master-planned condo community rising north of Lakeshore Boulevard. "I don't see many responsible businesses, and we also have a great forum to try that out at. There are 4,000 people right above us. It's a pretty easy test market," Mr. Desouza says.

He is among the first wave in the coming battle for the dollars of a huge cohort that will live in City Place. In five years, 20 shimmering towers and a sprawl of townhomes will have risen out of the mud north of the Gardiner Expressway, housing close to 40,000 people.

Approximately 20,000 people live here already, many of them childless professionals with little time left after long work hours -- a potential gold mine for retailers.

T.O. Tuck Shops, Mr. Desouza's high-minded convenience store, is set to open at 3 Navy Wharf Court in December. Modelled after the camp supply stores local twenty-somethings will remember, the shop will feature antique cabinetry, but also a few touches more evocative of their club crawls. Polished concrete floors gleam and a suspended ceiling hovers overhead, all concepts of Marc Kyriacou, designer of Brant House, Tonic and West, a posh King Street West lounge he also owns.

Beyond beef jerky, T.O. Tuck Shops will carry freshly baked bread, organic produce, dairy alternatives and vitamins. Along with co-owner Avery Santucci, 28, who lives in the condo upstairs, Mr. Desouza is banking on an environmentally friendly ethos to set the store apart from local competition.

That now includes a Loblaws at Queens Quay, pricey Fresh and Wild at King and Spadina streets and a bustling 24-hour Rabba Marche on Front Street. Another Rabba is on the way west of Spadina Avenue, while Sobeys is set to take over the base of a future tower near Bremner Boulevard.

The latest business to arrive is M&M Meat Shops Uptown, launching today at the corner of Front Street and Blue Jays Way. Open late (10 p.m. on weekdays) and slicked out in jet black and white, Uptown is the specialty frozen food retailer's first "urban concept" store in Toronto. The 1,250-square-foot space features computer kiosks where customers can download menu plans, recipes and decor tips.

"M&M Meat Shops Uptown understands that busy urbanites would prefer to navigate their social calendars rather than navigating their way through a crowded, impersonal supermarket," the chain said in a statement last week after Uptown opened quietly a week earlier.

"We're selling a lot of steaks, a lot of certified Angus steaks," said president and chief executive officer Gary Decatur, adding, "Since many folks don't have outdoor barbecues, we're also selling George Foreman grills and they've been flying off the shelves," as have single-serve meals for business people on their lunch break.

Some locals are delighted, as is evident on Concord City Place's Facebook page, which counts more than 200 members: "I have been travelling out of town for work the last couple weeks. I return to find an M&M meat shops at Front & Blue Jays Way?! Woo hoo! :)," resident Laura Pothier, 26, gushed last weekend.
 
"Risen out of the mud."

Not the sexiest way to describe its progress... but still it somehow fits.
 
Does anyone know which unit in 3 Navy Whar is getting the T.O. Tuck Shop? Is it the former Zees Eyewear, or the uber tiny spot next to the Preeners Cleaners? If the later, I dont see how they are going to get much pruduce/milk/bread in there. It's a very small space.
 
CityPlace means a vibrant downtown

I just found this thread quite by accident and decided to register. Boy you people like to complain alot. LOL!

My wife and I have lived at CityPlace for more than two years. We are owners who also call this area home. Although it's far from perfect, what development project really is? As far as I'm concerned, the style, height, number, positioning and architecture of the buildings is really best left to one's personal tastes.

Since we bought our place, and more buildings have become occupied, we have seen the area begin to blossom with a restaurant, coffee shop, (not a starbucks), dry cleaners, dairy queen (very important), and soon a large Sobey's to be built across Spadina. We have seen nothing but energy and excitement in what we consider a prime downtown location.

I don't understand how people on this thread think that CityPlace is some sort of terrible location or that it's destined to become a slum. In my opinion, when there was nothing here but the CN Tower and the Skydome, the area had a much better chance of becoming a slum than it does now. So there's railway tracks near here and a highway. So what? It's city living people. If you don't thrive off that kind of stuff, you should be living in the burbs. Have you ever been to Detroit or Houston, or Buffalo? These are dead cities. Nobody lives there. They ALL live in the burbs. Houston (where my sister-in-law lives), has a downtown that is deserted except for office towers. Hardly any restaurants. Hardly any transit. No nighlife. In fact, no day-life. Nobody comes out on to the streets. You can't even take one of those sightseeing bus trips because there are no sights to see. People who live in Toronto who don't travel much have no idea how good we have it here. Sure it's not perfect, but we should be happy that we have a vibrant downtown. We are more envied around the world than we give ourselves credit for.

I might be in the minority, but I'm happy CityPlace is here. :)
 
I agree completely. I have been living in cityplace for 2.5 years and love it. I don't see why people want to bash it so much. Probably because it doesn't fit the 'Toronto' mold.
 
Why don't people bash my ghetto in the media: slabcity@highpark? It's highrise towers in the park, everyone (except me and a few other peasants) seems to drive nice cars, the place is dominated by one ethnic group, blah blah blah. And new condos are being built in the hood! It's a freaking ghetto! Yet it's almost 50 years old (sidewalk out front is stamped 1959) and a home just beside my ghetto sold for $800,000! Come on Toronto Star, Globe and Mail National Putz write about my failed highrise ghetto!

Hey CP is the new kid on the block so people like to diss it; however, just like my ghetto it has its flaws and growing pains but ultimately will become a neighbourhood.
 
urbandreamer said:
Yet it's almost 50 years old (sidewalk out front is stamped 1959)
Click to expand...

Sidewalk dates and building dates aren't necessarily equivalent. By visual and urbanistic (i.e. the subway factor) influence, the High Park point towers are mid-60s at the earliest.

For the 1959ish version of such fare, refer to all that stuff overlooking the Davisville subway yard from the south...
 
urbandreamer said:
Why don't people bash my ghetto in the media: slabcity@highpark? It's highrise towers in the park, everyone (except me and a few other peasants) seems to drive nice cars, the place is dominated by one ethnic group, blah blah blah. And new condos are being built in the hood! It's a freaking ghetto! Yet it's almost 50 years old (sidewalk out front is stamped 1959) and a home just beside my ghetto sold for $800,000! Come on Toronto Star, Globe and Mail National Putz write about my failed highrise ghetto!
Click to expand...

Ghetto? The High Park Village website website makes it sound so good :cool: . To top it off, it's managed by Mintoâ„¢.

By the way, a series of high rises making up a "village" is worse than so many contemporary condo names.
 
^I dunno. This place (series of high rises, not all Minto-owned btw) behaves like a village: people hang out together with their neighbours (on a language/ethnic basis) --Russians with Russians (majority), Serbians with Serbians, English (white) Canadians with E-w-canadians, Iranians with Iranians, etc. (Editorialist in me says: Slabcity@Highpark possibly reflects GTA idea as a whole--ie everyone on surface tolerates the other but behind closed doors does not and in fact socially hangs out with "own kind" most of the time.) Anyhow, back to the High Park Village idea: yeah there's a few neighbourhood stores in the base of some towers where the villagers gossip, there's the neighbourhood hangouts where young people meet, blah blah blah. Basically, it's a typical small Canadian village filled with polite gossipy folk who hang out with their own little church/religious group: much like Linwood Ontario where buggy Mennonites hang out with buggy Mennonites, car Mennonites with car Mennonites, Lutherans with fellow Protestants, RC's with Rc's......

Is CityPlace similar? Residents speak up here!
 
Ah the good ol' railway lands

johnstandspadina.jpg




:p
 
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