Toronto Forma | 308m | 84s | Great Gulf | Gehry Partners

Those saying that the subway is a work of social policy are like the people who say this luxury mega-project geared to investors and transient tenants is making downtown affordable.

There are reasons to support both schemes, but social responsibility is not one of them.
 
maestro said:
Mirvish neither has the experience or funds to pull it off even if his intentions are sincere. I'm not convinced on that either based on his track record.
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Well it looks like he is trying his best to make it happen............http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...-toronto-retailer-honest-eds/article15107432/

Mirvish sells site of iconic Toronto retailer Honest Ed’s
“Families and businesses evolve,” Mr. Mirvish said. “My family moved his business from Dundas Street to Bloor Street; I’m moving our business from Bloor Street to King Street.”

That is a reference to his development project dubbed Mirvish Gehry, a proposal designed by Frank Gehry that would include three condo towers of more than 80 storeys each, retail space, space for OCAD University and a private museum for Mr. Mirvish’s collection. The project would require the demolition of four listed heritage buildings, and substantial zoning changes. Mr. Mirvish has been in talks with the city’s planning department for nearly a year without gaining their support; he will be taking the project to the Ontario Municipal Board in January
 
The city is moving to designate the warehouses heritage buildings. That would almost certainly kill this project. Maybe Mirvish can do a land swap for a nearby property?
 
Well seriously, who would want an iconic residential complex designed by a world renown architect complete with art museum and art college when you can have a 70 year old warehouse?
 
Or perhaps Mr. Mirvish and Gehry may reconsider the design and incorporate some of the existing warehouses into the design after all? Gehry has done this umpteen times with many of his projects including his AGO reno. If Mirvish wants this bad enough maybe he will compromise. The other issue of course is the height which will be a battle in its own right.
Like I said before, Toronto just hasn't been capable of seeing many big projects through to the final vision in the past two decades. We have a planning dept. lead by a small town transplant (Peterborough) so as expected we get a small town approach to planning. The DRP is stuck in a conformist rut, ensuring Toronto continues to churn out uninspired architectural dreck.
My hope is that Adam Vaughn (if he truly supports this project) can rally counsel to approve this. This is a game changer for the city, but Toronto has consistently failed to think big, and I fear it will happen again with this project.
 
I doubt Adam Vaughan will support this project if there's fears it may set a precedent for the OMB. That's what Keesmat and all other reasonable people are afraid of. The TIFF tower was not supposed to set a precedent and it did, so ironically enough there's a precedent for precedence setting.
 
I seriously doubt if approved, the area would have a slew of 288 meter proposals. Most of the available land for development is already spoken for. As for the TIFF precedent, it is utterly ridiculous to build everything at 157m. At that height there is very little to discern that from a 200m tower from the street view. Its not like Young and College area had a slew of 275m proposals after Aura was approved. The sites have to be suitable for that scale, and the developers have to have the money to finance such large projects.
Yeah for Toronto we keep some non descript decrepit old warehouses and lose a world class art school and art gallery, packaged in world class architecture. But hey look at those warehouses. This city lacks vision.
 
skyrise said:
I seriously doubt if approved, the area would have a slew of 288 meter proposals.
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Look no further than the area around Yonge and Bloor - it is happening there at its respective scale.

Look also at the Waterfont, after ICE were approved we've got what, 9 ~70 story buildings proposed?
 
He also cites Yonge and College as an example following Aura, which really goes against his point since there have been multiple (are several forthcoming) tall proposals there since Aura, ~60 floors or so.

City planning decisions in our profit-driven market are all about precedent, make no mistake.
 
Height limit around Aura still seems to be around 200 meter maximum, Canderel had to cut their 460 yonge project which was 70 meters shorter than Aura.

Absolutely correct about precedent, it is one of the most important things for OMB approvals. Thats why I doubt this project will be approved by them, there is simply no precedent. Does height in this area really matter anyways? I mean the limit is already 157 meters... at that height you are already at the "really tall building" stage.
 
So I'm not trying to sound negative but a key thing to remember about Toronto is that it's still a city that fears being in the big league (and by that I mean most people who have any decision-making power).

Look at what Canadian developers propose for Australia, the UK and the US and even Calgary vs. what they propose for Toronto (for office buildings). Calgary definitely has better looking new office skyscrapers than Toronto's (again, new)....

Look at how badly planned 10 Dundas East is and how silly the whole Trump debacle is - yes, it may be that planning did not know these buildings would turn out like this but still, I don't recall seeing such obviously ugly-looking buildings in other key cities' downtowns.

Toronto will continue to have far too many ubiquitous boxy towers that will have a large grey component to them, silly restrictions of all kinds which will plague our city, and despite minor improvements, the city will have a somewhat shabby public realm. And transit will always be an issue in our lifetimes because even if all the necessary expansions are made, they will take far too long for most of us to truly benefit from them. How many years will it take for the spadina extension....nine years for six stations?

In a way, Toronto is a stunted city (compared to its potential). Yes, I know, I've said negative things in a thread about the Mirvish towers but sometimes one can't help it.....

And in case if someone is wondering why so many people to choose to live in Toronto, it's because people still like this city inspite its shortcomings...it's just that when you're passionate about you city (like I am), you can't but help be frustrated at all things that are so obviously wrong...
 
skyrise said:
We have a planning dept. lead by a small town transplant (Peterborough) so as expected we get a small town approach to planning. The DRP is stuck in a conformist rut, ensuring Toronto continues to churn out uninspired architectural dreck. This is a game changer for the city, but Toronto has consistently failed to think big, and I fear it will happen again with this project.
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These city staffers are more a liability than an asset. It begs the question, how does one go about getting these people replaced? Enough!
 
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