Toronto 2221 Yonge Condos | 192.62m | 58s | Tower Hill | Pei Partnership

We're actually losing far more Class B and C space than we're replacing. And not just at Yonge and Eg - it's happening across the city (eg. Consumers Road Business Park, where a new secondary plan is in the works to defend the area from exactly this sort of condo-replacing-of-existing-office-space). That fact also happens to disprove your second (completely unfounded) statement: that 'someone will build them.' Simply put, no, new Class B and C buildings are not being built and for a decent 'market based' reason: construction costs are similar, yet the rents one is able to receive for the lower-rated spaces are less. This is precisely why such older office buildings are such a vital piece of the urban puzzle. They exist already and are able to offer space to businesses which can't afford to locate themselves in more recent, Class A buildings. Beyond this, there are also environmental arguments for the embodied energy these buildings contain vs. demolition and reconstruction as well as the aforementioned fact that replacing all of this existing office with new condos creates the same sort of monoculture that we've seen fail so spectacularly in the suburbs.

I'd be fine for you to leave all of that complexity alone however and defend (somehow) your prior claim that these 'nasty buildings' are all filled with 'fraudulent businesses.'

But yeah, "sign of a healthy city" or whatever...
 
Your last throw-away line is comical. Its either one or the other: growing city and rising rents downtown, or shrinking city with semi-free locations. Or some convoluted commercial rent control subsidized by tax-payers. I will take the former, I assume you prefer the latter.

I do not believe your claim there isn't space for semi-viable businesses to rent somewhere in Toronto. Maybe not at Yonge & Eglinton, Bay and Bloor, etc. Part of the reason, which I assume you would've intuited, Class C, D, Z is dissapearing is that many businesses don't require the same footage as in the past since many employees operate virtually.

And you lost me at the "embodied energy these buildings contain". I'm fairly environmentally sensitive and perhaps have a lower carbon footprint that you. I'd expect the cumulative "embodied energy" in one of those tear-downs is less than the energy expended in getting an hours traffic moving on the Gardiner. Where are your facts?

So once again, if there is demand someone WILL build them. I refuse your claim that some office park is going to be prohibitively expensive to construct.

One last point, I'm aware not all these buildings are filled with fraudulent businesses, Scientologists, Spas, XYZ corporations, cash-only dance studios. I guess I've been politically incorrect to small office buildings.
 
The more office workers, the more vibrant, and the more busy Yonge and Eglinton will be during the day. Which has a knock-on effect on local retail businesses that are already struggling with the very high rents of the area.

Condos add people too, but office workers are more consistent customers, and at Yonge&Eg there is clearly room for both. Which makes me disappointed when I see the loss of office space in all these new developments.
 
ProjectEnd said:
We're actually losing far more Class B and C space than we're replacing. And not just at Yonge and Eg - it's happening across the city (eg. Consumers Road Business Park, where a new secondary plan is in the works to defend the area from exactly this sort of condo-replacing-of-existing-office-space). That fact also happens to disprove your second (completely unfounded) statement: that 'someone will build them.' Simply put, no, new Class B and C buildings are not being built and for a decent 'market based' reason: construction costs are similar, yet the rents one is able to receive for the lower-rated spaces are less. This is precisely why such older office buildings are such a vital piece of the urban puzzle. They exist already and are able to offer space to businesses which can't afford to locate themselves in more recent, Class A buildings. Beyond this, there are also environmental arguments for the embodied energy these buildings contain vs. demolition and reconstruction as well as the aforementioned fact that replacing all of this existing office with new condos creates the same sort of monoculture that we've seen fail so spectacularly in the suburbs.

I'd be fine for you to leave all of that complexity alone however and defend (somehow) your prior claim that these 'nasty buildings' are all filled with 'fraudulent businesses.'

But yeah, "sign of a healthy city" or whatever...
Click to expand...

Aren't there a lot of class B and C buildings in the inner suburbs and 905 with vacant space? I know the locations are mostly transit deserts but I assume the rents are really cheap.
 
pman said:
Aren't there a lot of class B and C buildings in the inner suburbs and 905 with vacant space? I know the locations are mostly transit deserts but I assume the rents are really cheap.
Click to expand...

I'm sure there are but that doesn't help Yonge and Eglinton.
 
Buildup: While ProjectEnd is plenty capable of defending his points himself, I'd just like to point out, without commenting on your argument itself, that you're doing a terrible job actually arguing your point when you start off your post with a subjective comment that his "last throw-away line is comical," yet then include, as a point of fact that you seem to expect forum readers to take seriously, that you are "fairly environmentally sensitive and perhaps have a lower carbon footprint that you."

You essentially destroy any credibility you have with such statements, which makes, what could otherwise be an interesting conversation something fairly silly to read, as, facts or not (where are yours, incidentally?), ProjectEnd's points are all, by contrast, well reasoned and structured.

Not a personal attack, just trying to improve the level of discourse.
 
buildup said:
And you lost me at the "embodied energy these buildings contain". I'm fairly environmentally sensitive and perhaps have a lower carbon footprint that you. I'd expect the cumulative "embodied energy" in one of those tear-downs is less than the energy expended in getting an hours traffic moving on the Gardiner. Where are your facts?
Click to expand...
Are you kidding me? In like two seconds of Googling, I found a source that estimates embodied energy at 10 to 15 percent of energy used over the 100-year lifespan of a building. That's a huge amount of energy. There's tons of research on this, and in most cases it's more energy efficient to renovate than to demolish and rebuild. I don't know why you're so dismissive of embodied energy. It's a very important consideration.
 
buildup said:
Your last throw-away line is comical. Its either one or the other: growing city and rising rents downtown, or shrinking city with semi-free locations. Or some convoluted commercial rent control subsidized by tax-payers. I will take the former, I assume you prefer the latter.

I do not believe your claim there isn't space for semi-viable businesses to rent somewhere in Toronto. Maybe not at Yonge & Eglinton, Bay and Bloor, etc. Part of the reason, which I assume you would've intuited, Class C, D, Z is dissapearing is that many businesses don't require the same footage as in the past since many employees operate virtually.

And you lost me at the "embodied energy these buildings contain". I'm fairly environmentally sensitive and perhaps have a lower carbon footprint that you. I'd expect the cumulative "embodied energy" in one of those tear-downs is less than the energy expended in getting an hours traffic moving on the Gardiner. Where are your facts?

So once again, if there is demand someone WILL build them. I refuse your claim that some office park is going to be prohibitively expensive to construct.

One last point, I'm aware not all these buildings are filled with fraudulent businesses, Scientologists, Spas, XYZ corporations, cash-only dance studios. I guess I've been politically incorrect to small office buildings.
Click to expand...

There's a great deal of assumption in this post so let's deal with a few things individually. In the second paragraph, you state that there may not be room for these sorts of buildings at "Yonge & Eglinton, Bay and Bloor, etc." indicating that anyone looking for office space of that class should be forced to relocate to suburban office parks where it exists in greater amounts (again, the ongoing loss of the Consumer's Road business park among others proves that this is happening all over the city, not just down and midtown). In the next paragraph however, you express concern for the "energy expended in getting hours traffic moving on the Gardiner [sic]." So what is it? Should we worry about the environment (traffic) and the livability of our down and midtown nodes or should we just allow residential monocultures to proliferate in these locations because such buildings can make quick money for those developing them? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the redevelopment of these buildings, but I do believe that a 1:1 replacement of office space, ideally at the same class as that which was lost, will still allow project proponents to make money while keeping the mixed-use nature of the neighbourhood intact.

I'd also ask, if "someone [was] building them" then where are they? And as I explained in my last post, why would anyone purchase land and construct lower-rated office space which commands a lower PSF when the acquisition and construction costs are similar? Where are these projects?
 
This morning:

IMG_20151023_083314.jpg
IMG_20151023_083346.jpg
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20151023_083314.jpg
    IMG_20151023_083314.jpg
    268.4 KB · Views: 1,438
  • IMG_20151023_083346.jpg
    IMG_20151023_083346.jpg
    585.4 KB · Views: 1,434
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top