Toronto West Don Lands: Blocks 17 & 26 | 141m | 43s | Aspen Ridge | Core Architects

*Only* Ford? Not even joined by Holyday or any of the other usual suspects? And *Mikey*, who was supposedly more next-generation moderate than his uncles? Wow, that's telling...

Hey now, poor Mikey's in a tough spot - he can't be seen to publicly vote against the guy who parachuted (parashat?) him into council.

Big Uncle Doug's plenteous ass needs a kissin'.
 
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Between the reasons of Justice Corbett and the information in the Report that was adopted by Council, it seems clear now that the Province was acting illegally.

What makes this odd is that they could have prepared the requisite heritage assessments and provided them to the City and then gone ahead with demolition. They either were incompetent in failing to take these steps, or intentionally circumvented the law to avoid the scrutiny they expected from preparing and providing the requisite assessments. Either way, this is a very bad look on the Province.

This also makes it clear how critical the quick legal action taken by the Friends of the Foundry via the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association was in saving these buildings. Without the timely legal action, the demolition would be much further along now, and the illegality of the Province may not have come to light until it was too late.

Bravo and thank you St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association. You have done the city a real service.
Given the MO of this government and other examples of intentional avoidance of public scrutiny/public consultation, I find incompetence unlikely.

AoD
 
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Given the MO of this government and other examples of intentional avoidance of public scrutiny/public consultation, I find incompetence unlikely.

AoD
I find it secondary, but not unlikely.

42
 
IRCPA releases their plan.
IRCPA FOUNDRY RENDER.jpg
IRCPA FOUNDRY SITE PLAN.jpg
IRCPA FOUNDRY DIAGRAM.jpg
FOUNDRY_IRCPA CORKTOWN CENTRE_re.jpg
 
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Good design and use of the site, but the two 12 storey buildings should be considerably taller to enable more affordable housing. Also wondering a bit how the indoor space in the Machine Hall and in particular in the East Warehouse where they propose a performing arts venue would work with the structure and foundations of the two buildings above coming down right into the middle of them.
 
Good design and use of the site, but the two 12 storey buildings should be considerably taller to enable more affordable housing. Also wondering a bit how the indoor space in the Machine Hall and in particular in the East Warehouse where they propose a performing arts venue would work with the structure and foundations of the two buildings above coming down right into the middle of them.
agreed on the height. it seems they were pretty strict about not wanting to supercede heights of neighbouring buildings. i believe the intention is that the machine hall is converted to building lobbies, cores, and some storefronts, and the east warehouse and west foundry are retained.
 
Looks great, but I can’t imagine the province scaling down the project to this extent. Especially considering they were planning 250 affordable units and this plan only has half that number. The only way this flies is if the province sells the land to the city.

the reality is that each of the residential buildings need to be 5-10 stories taller.
 
Looks great, but I can’t imagine the province scaling down the project to this extent. Especially considering they were planning 250 affordable units and this plan only has half that number. The only way this flies is if the province sells the land to the city.

the reality is that each of the residential buildings need to be 5-10 stories taller.

And there is nothing wrong with it being 5-10 stories higher, especially if it meant the heritage structures will be preserved.

AoD
 
Cute images, sure, but why would you put the 'towers' over the star building? You'd lose all of the open air beauty of the main hall. This doesn't really take actual building science into account in any way.
I supposed you could give them C for effort? But still...those two buildings need build in away to minimize their footings to maximize space in said building. And that admittedly is likely a bit tricky as currently shown, to put it mildly.

...that said, it does demonstrates a much more forward thinking in how to preserve those buildings than is offered by our current Provincial government.
 
Interesting concept, especially the curved building on stilts and the way in maintains the mid-block connections, but the density is unrealistic. I agree, it seems to me you'd want to keep the atrium of the main building and put a tower where they have a park. Given the amount of public green space nearby I don't think a park is necessary.
 
Cute images, sure, but why would you put the 'towers' over the star building? You'd lose all of the open air beauty of the main hall. This doesn't really take actual building science into account in any way.
agree with the height, these should have substantial height to have a fighting word in all this. I thought the same thing in that the towers seemed odd over the main machine hall. However, it does allow you to preserve much of the open space on the site which is nice. It's not a dissimilar approach from what happened at Distillery; tower jutting out of a small footprint 1-storey brick warehouse.
 
Interesting concept, especially the curved building on stilts and the way in maintains the mid-block connections, but the density is unrealistic. I agree, it seems to me you'd want to keep the atrium of the main building and put a tower where they have a park. Given the amount of public green space nearby I don't think a park is necessary.
Yeah, you have a ton of green space at Corktown Common and lots of sitting/relaxing space on Front. Can the park and build a tall tower there. It's the only spot in the area where you don't have to worry about shadows!
 

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