Toronto Waterlink at Pier 27 | 43.89m | 14s | Cityzen | a—A

Urban Shocker said:
Harbour Square was, indeed, a pioneering building, unimaginative 2, not only expressively - the concrete brutalism that's so characteristic of the Toronto of that time - but because it was the first to bring people to live in a derelict former industrial district and helped revive it. Pier 27 continues that initiative. I realize you have a history here of objecting to reviving derelict former industrial sites for people to live in, but that doesn't negate the fact that it's happening and that good local firms are doing the work, now as before.
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Honestly, that's the first time I have read someone defending Harbour Square and praising it as something we want on the waterfront. But we at least agree that Pier 27 and Harbour Square are the same concept, just built at different times.

And I know for a fact that unimaginative (like myself) is keen on many residential re-uses of derelict industrial lands. Like in Kitchener (notably the Kauffman Lofts) or King-Spadina. There have only been two examples in which I can think of where there's been conflict about rehabilitating derelict industrial sites - the Distillery District and here. Another one of many generalizations on both sides of this debate.
 
unimaginative2 said:
That's evidently your opinion.

I want Scaramouche. I want Jamie Kennedy. I want a good sandwich place. I want outdoor restaurants. I want shops. I want offices. I want a cultural institution, like a university or college campus, museum, concert hall, etc. Ryerson and U of T are both expanding, and they might be suitable. Maybe even a night spot or two.
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Ah, so you want someplace where people will not be after 6 pm - university classrooms, offices, museums. You also want the higest end restaurants possible - which is unlikely to happen if the low density, sparsely populated area you envision is built. Jamie Kennedy, despite Joanne Kates best efforts (she is the only eater in the city who seems so enamoured of his cookery - he could serve feces to her and she would type a glowing review for the Globe) couldn't make a profit on his restaurant on Church Street. Why would you expect he could make it work in the desolate deveolpment you so desire?
 
On their way to or from the Rabba or the Hasty Market - certainly not to Jamie Kennedy. Or would you like a student ghetto on the waterfront?
 
AndreaPalladio said:
Don't let unimaginative hear you say that. Nothing less than a suburban subdivision will satisfy him.
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What are you talking about? Reading all his posts I don't see how you could possibly get that impression.

I'm not sure why the idea of retail or anything else other than a condo is so troubling to some people. They must at least think towards the future of the waterfront with this development.
 
syn said:
What are you talking about? Reading all his posts I don't see how you could possibly get that impression.
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Because he wants the parcel cut up into small lots, separated by as many streets as possible. Which, given the price of this parcel, monster houses. It would be too expensive even for the Rabba and Coffee Time some people think are critical to this area.
 
AndreaPalladio said:
Because he wants the parcel cut up into small lots, separated by as many streets as possible. Which, given the price of this parcel, monster houses. It would be too expensive even for the Rabba and Coffee Time some people think are critical to this area.
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That's a patronizing description. Don't the Fram dvpts in Port Credit fit this present-day "desirable" suburbanish tableau a little better? (For better or worse.)
 
Seeing that nice big rendering actually just starts to angry up the blood again. But I think there are too many varied strains of arguments in this thread at this point. Wasted opportunity in my opinion but it's better than the surface parking lot that it will replace and for many Toronto developments that's pretty much all we can hope for at this stage
 
AndreaPalladio said:
Don't let unimaginative hear you say that. Nothing less than a suburban subdivision will satisfy him.
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That has got to be the worst, most unthoughtful generalization so far in this thread that has been full of such generalizations. Unimaginative, nor anyone else has come close to advocating a suburban subdivision, and AP even knows that.
 
TrickyRicky said:
Seeing that nice big rendering actually just starts to angry up the blood again. But I think there are too many varied strains of arguments in this thread at this point. Wasted opportunity in my opinion but it's better than the surface parking lot that it will replace and for many Toronto developments that's pretty much all we can hope for at this stage
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"Pier 27: Redefining luxury and parking lots."
 
unimaginative2 proposes subdividing the site into a minimum of 24 lots - thin slivers of land really - yet somehow wants to see a large institution built there. He has repeatedly railed against "the rich" on this thread and wants to block them from buying there. Yet he wants to see Scaramouche ( one of the most expensive restaurants in the city! ) setting up there. He tries to rewrite history to downplay the significance of Harbour Square - it was planned as early as 1965 and, if you look at photographs of the waterfront from the mid-1970's, you'll see it is the only residential building on the downtown waterfront, and one of the few new buildings there at all.

Yet he claims that his plan for the site, when compared to the body of work completed by our leading contemporary architectural firms, isn't contrarian ...

Yonge Street was begun, in 1796, to link the town of York to the north - a military road to Lake Simcoe through the richly agricultuaral hinterlands, not in order to take people down to Lake Ontario. The site we're discussing - where the landfill meets the lake - dates from the early 1930's when Yonge was extended south. That's some 130 years later.
 
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