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West Don Lands

grey said:
From his description, it sounds like he's absolutely right. It sounds terrible!

Who decided that a bunch of sports stadiums with huge surface parking lots were a good idea for the waterfront? I thought we were trying to get away from that.
Click to expand...

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LDL doesn't have room for arenas and parking lots here in South Canuckistan? While I'm sympathetic with the Waterfront vision, IMO an arena is a great idea for part of this site. You're going to have a huge whack of new people living in WDL, Distillery, and LDL (not to mention Harbourfront) and only crappy old Moss Park Arena nearby. What's wrong with letting puckheads have an arena? What's wrong with having a parking lot that can handle the huge whack of people we want to use the new parks/restaurants/playing fields? I can understand wanting to landscape things, but something like the playing fields/landscaping/parking lots/movie theatres/OTB parlour put in at Woodbine Beach north of Lakeshore could work for everyone. Those parking lots are used as much by people going to see fireworks as people going to piss away their life savings on Hong Kong horse races...
 
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Well, that would be because those are soccer pitches, and what the city staff is advocating is a four-pad hockey arena with parking. My point is not that parking (several hundred spaces seems like overkill, maybe, but if you have 20 players * 4 pads * 2 as people arrive and depart, you're already up to 160 people in the arenas at one time. A couple hundred spaces would be necessary if you wanted that parking lot to service LDL parks as well.)

I'm agreeing with the vision of a hockey arena instead of only summer sport facilities, because I hear that this 'hockey' thing is a pretty popular sport, and I know that Moss Park sucks donkeys as a facility.
 
MODS: This thread TITLE should probably be changed to LOWER DON LANDS or many recent posts moved there - the stadium etc are NOT in West Don Lands which are north of the rail tracks.
 
Today's G&M WT insert

Whacking big insert in today's G&M
http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/explore_projects

It's actually about all the projects, but this was the easiest to find today. Mods, feel free to cross-post other places, I've added this to the WDL and Sugar Beach threads.

Anyhoo, the WT folks were definitely beating the drum -- I'm betting the criticism about 'not being ready for the Pan Ams' might have stung a bit, or maybe they just wanted to get a propaganda blast out as construction season begins in earnest. Nothing particularly new, but they stuck to the SB and SP timelines with SB coming this summer as Corus Quay also gets opened.

One thing that's WDL-related -- they mentioned that a TCHC buiding was 'under construction'. Is there another building for TCHC going into WDL other than at the corner of King & St. Lawrence. 'Cause if that's what they're referring to, they mean 'we've parked a piece of construction equipment on it.'
 
One thing that's WDL-related -- they mentioned that a TCHC buiding was 'under construction'. Is there another building for TCHC going into WDL other than at the corner of King & St. Lawrence. 'Cause if that's what they're referring to, they mean 'we've parked a piece of construction equipment on it.'
Click to expand...

My apologies to the TCHC crew -- they've got the diggers working, and things are starting to proceed apace.
 
Mill%20Street%20Extension.JPG


I'm new to this, so bear with my technical growing pains.

Hopefully the above shows that the extension to Mill street may be taking form?
 
Is West Don Lands the waterfront? Then shouldn't The Distillery, St. Lawrence, Southcore and City Place all be considered the waterfront too? They are all the same distance from the lake. For me the waterfront starts when you cross under the Gardiner.
 
I cannot find another thread for the TCH building at corner of King and St Lawrence Streets. The excavation is done but the City seems VERY slow in issuing the permit.

Application: Partial Permit Status: Not Started

Location: 589 KING ST E
TORONTO ON M5A 1M6

Ward 28: Toronto Centre-Rosedale

Application#: 09 189175 FND 00 PP Accepted Date: Jul 23, 2010

Project: Multiple Use/Non Residential Partial Permit - Foundation

Description: Part Permit - Proposal to construct 3 residential buildings (with commercial at grade) - 1-8 sty building & 2-4 sty buildings with common underground parking (57 spaces). Total # of residential units = 243.(West Donlands)
 
More upcoming work for WDL, this posted on WT website:

Eastern Construction Company Limited is the Construction Manager for the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (WT) – Stormwater Tunnels at the WEST DON LANDS Precinct.
Eastern Construction invites experienced tunneling contractors to submit a prequalification for the following project:
Waterfront Toronto Intends to construct a stormwater management tunnel at the foot of Cherry St. in Toronto. The entry shaft is on the south side of railway corridor and the main tunnel will curve southward with the outfall connected to the Keating Channel. An additional northward heading tunnel will extend under the railway corridor, and a westward tunnel heading will connect to a drop shaft on Cherry St. The tunnel will be constructed in the shale bedrock and have a 2.4m finished inside diameter. The entry shaft will be used as a stormwater detention facility. This will have a finished diameter of approximately 12m. A base bid concept will be provided by the owner. Preliminary estimates for the project are on the order of $8 million.
Please refer to the Daily Commercial News (January 26th, 2010) or below for details and all relevant deadlines.
NOTE: The deadline for submission is Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 by 2:00:00 p.m. local time.


The City is supposed to start working on Cherry Street in April. First at the King/Cherry junction and moving south to the railway. Last details I saw were:

a. Road building from King to Eastern will take from April 2011 to December 2011 and except for very brief periods should allow 2 lanes to stay open.

b. Road building from Eastern south to Mill is expected to take from July 2011 to August 2012; the road will need to be totally closed for the first 6 months; for the remainder, access will be limited.

c. Road building south of Mill St. to the rail bridge should take from April 2011 to August 2012 with total closure until the end of 2011. Access will be maintained for Cityscape.

Question: Do the City and the TTC have $$ for the streetcar tracks?
 
Petroleum storage area

I wonder if everyone is aware of the conditions on the West Don Lands 56 years ago.

WestDonLandsc1955.jpg
 
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Though the shot is centred more on what is considered Lower Don Lands - WDL is north of the railway corridor, which is somewhat "uninteresting" in comparison to the tank farm.

AoD
 
18 July 2011 'bike-by' update

Things are REALLY cooking on all the WDL projects right now. I did a bike loop Dundas/Coxwell/Leslie/Cherry and decided to meander up Cherry under the tracks this morning rather than back onto the Don trail. While it was by no means taking my life into my hands (the drivers were all very courteous), the amount and size of the equipment was startling.

At Cherry and Lake Shore they're digging between Lake Shore and the channel. The bike path from Cherry to the GO access road is closed while they work there. Now, they're also working all the way along Cherry to Eastern, the Mill St extension and environs are getting a lot of heavy work, the TCHC work seems to be re-started, the River St extension had a bunch of trucks on it, and River City construction has entered a new phase -- looks like the foundations are soon to go in. (This wee survey doesn't include Streetcar's big building on King nor the Park's workers.) I'll bet there was 25+ heavy vehicles between all the various projects.
 
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