Toronto Aura at College Park | 271.87m | 78s | Canderel | Graziani + Corazza

A surface parking lot at least has potential to be something good. The Aura podium doesn't have that.

In my previous post, I explained why it is irrational to judge something based on its 'potentials'. I believe, logically, we should look at the value Aura currently brings, and compare it to similar buildings on major intersections in the city. I'm not going to repeat myself. If you insist on arguing 'what it could have been', so be it.

Now that it's been unitized, how do you propose they do that?

Convert half of the underground mall into a grocery store (Longos or Whole Foods?). The goal is to get an anchor that draws enough foot traffic to the mall.

Dealing with the individual retail suite owners will be tricky. It boils down to the expected value of the underground mall, considering the growth of Ryerson, the future PATH connection, the YSL development and Chelsea Green. If investment firms see value in the mall, buying out the retail suites one by one (quietly) should be similar to reclaiming strips of Yonge Street, only in a much smaller scale.
 
Dealing with the individual retail suite owners will be tricky. It boils down to the expected value of the underground mall, considering the growth of Ryerson, the future PATH connection, the YSL development and Chelsea Green. If investment firms see value in the mall, buying out the retail suites one by one (quietly) should be similar to reclaiming strips of Yonge Street, only in a much smaller scale.
It just occurred to me that Aura's basement could be retrofitted into classrooms and study space for Ryerson.

It would be devoid of windows but then again, so are the movie theatres that Ryerson rents for classes.
 
It just occurred to me that Aura's basement could be retrofitted into classrooms and study space for Ryerson.
That's actually not a half bad idea, that thought never even crossed my mind. The size of the shops there are too small for classroom space, but they would theoretically be a good size for tutorials.
 
That's actually not a half bad idea, that thought never even crossed my mind. The size of the shops there are too small for classroom space, but they would theoretically be a good size for tutorials.
I was thinking of clearing the basement and redesigning it from scratch.

But if the present layout was kept, you could make them into tutorial rooms which would free up other classrooms on campus for classes instead of tutorials.
 
I was thinking of clearing the basement and redesigning it from scratch.

But if the present layout was kept, you could make them into tutorial rooms which would free up other classrooms on campus for classes instead of tutorials.
The problem is surely that the units in the basement were all (or most) sold off so having a unified change is far more difficult. Nor sure if they are a "condominium" - where 80% could vote for a sale that would force all to sell.
 
Morning of July 3rd, 2018

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Porter gave me a pretty great view of the skyline on the solstice. Didn't want to spam it on every thread, so I picked this one because it like how it shows how much of a landmark Aura really is, for better or worse.
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Porter gave me a pretty great view of the skyline on the solstice. Didn't want to spam it on every thread, so I picked this one because it like how it shows how much of a landmark Aura really is, for better or worse. View attachment 148918
From the same evening:

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Not your plane, (taken a little earlier) but it just amuses me to have been out there shooting at the same time. I would have seen your plane, but had my camera aimed at Eau du Soleil (results in that thread) around the time you were lined up for landing.

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The basement retail gets worse by the day! Has anybody seen the food court recently? One restaurant is open and almost every chair in that food court has the back ripped out. The place is just falling apart!
 

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