Toronto Monde | 149.95m | 44s | Great Gulf | Moshe Safdie

ksun said:
Which major North American cities were NOT built by industry? It is by no means unique. And why does Toronto try so hard to celebrate something that every other city has?
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True and most cities still have some active industrial usage in or around their cores. I don't see a need to whitewash everything in Toronto. In fact, this city can be construed as too vanilla already. Some faded or chipped paint with one of those new flashy noticeboards plastered in front under a web of wires is about the extent of our grit.
 
Hit up the Junction if you want some grit in the city. If you never leave the downtown, yea there isn't much of it, but Toronto is full of it if you know where to look.
 
Tuscani01 said:
Back to Monde though. Someone had mentioned that the West end of the building is pretty close to Sherbourne Common. Is this entire side going to have retail?
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Looks like that's the plan:

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That last rendering displays what could be a nice colonnade experience if the right type of retail is selected.

It's a shame that there's not in the works a more effective conduit for pedestrians to cross QQ—there won't be much flow between the buildings on the north and south sides of the street. I suppose it's partly dependent upon what form the street takes if/when the LRT is built, though I imagine that's, realistically, a 20-year horizon at best.
 
ADRM said:
That last rendering displays what could be a nice colonnade experience if the right type of retail is selected.

It's a shame that there's not in the works a more effective conduit for pedestrians to cross QQ—there won't be much flow between the buildings on the north and south sides of the street. I suppose it's partly dependent upon what form the street takes if/when the LRT is built, though I imagine that's, realistically, a 20-year horizon at best.
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QQE will look like QQW when it is done, there are plans/renderings on the WT site. I live in hope the LRT will happen in next 5 years and several developers have told the City that their plans depend on it happening. (In some cases they have been told it WILL be there but ...)
 
Sadly, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of a waterfront LRT happening in the next 5 years. And, for better or worse, it's largely irrelevant that developers were expecting there to be more progress made on that front, because ultimately Council needs to agree upon a plan and fund it.

In the latest transit reset presentations from the planning department, a "waterfront transit reset" was listed as a priority item (along with DRL, Eglinton LRT west and east expansions, Scarborough subway expansion, what's left of SmartTrack, and perhaps one or two other competing priorities I'm missing top of mind), but no timeline outside the broad 15-year timeframe was suggested. Most of those programs still need both final buy-in, planning, and, most importantly, funding. That's a whole lot of competing priorities, and it's simply impossible, given that state, that there's a waterfront LRT in 5 years.

It would be truly fantastic if that wasn't the case, because this neighbourhood will be *dying* for some transit connectivity in a few years and the LRT could really help expand the continued development of the area, contribute to its vibrancy and connectivity for residents and non-residents alike, and enhance future development opportunities along the Keating Channel and the Portlands. Sadly, Council and co. are apparently fine to continue with transit business as more or less usual, which is a crying shame.
 
Yeah, I'm inclined to agree, sadly. It's also interesting to note that many of the future residents here will be dealing with a Liberty Village transit situation. Sure, they're not as far out from the core, and I suppose in nice weather it's not too much to walk from, say, Jarvis to Union in order to get into the core/the city for work. But the TTC bus servicing this area is going to be a mess at rush horus.
 
Having restaurants and cafes on the west side of that building, beside the water channel, is going to be a fantastic in the summer, especially when the sun is going down. (Both at Monde and Aqualina)
 
ADRM said:
That last rendering displays what could be a nice colonnade experience if the right type of retail is selected.

It's a shame that there's not in the works a more effective conduit for pedestrians to cross QQ—there won't be much flow between the buildings on the north and south sides of the street. I suppose it's partly dependent upon what form the street takes if/when the LRT is built, though I imagine that's, realistically, a 20-year horizon at best.
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There are walk lights on both sides of Sherbourne. I use them every day.
 
Yep, I'm aware—I was thinking more about traffic calming measures on what's currently an extremely busy street and perhaps a more overt visually impactful treatment ushering pedestrians across the lanes.
 
ADRM said:
Yep, I'm aware—I was thinking more about traffic calming measures on what's currently an extremely busy street and perhaps a more overt visually impactful treatment ushering pedestrians across the lanes.
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It's not a busy street at all right now. Pretty dead even during rush hour. Then again, there is nothing there to generate traffic at the moment. But once Queens Quay East is redone to match QQW, it will be nothing more than a lane of traffic in each direction.
 
My mistake—I didn't mean busy as in volume of traffic, I meant it mostly in terms of the average speed of cars. But, yes, I agree with you with regard to QQE improvements, although my assumption is that that plan will not move forward until a final decision has been rendered on the nature of waterfront transit (i.e. LRT vs. streetcar extension)—is that correct to the best of your knowledge?
 
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