Toronto 464 Queen West Parkette | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto

PMT

PMT

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464 QUEEN ST W
Ward 20 - Tor & E.York District

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Proposal for the development of a 4 storey office building with retail at grade. The proposed development seeks to redevelop a site that is currently occupied by a 1 storey commercial building with surface parking at the rear.

Proposed Use --- # of Storeys --- # of Units ---

Applications:
Type Number Date Submitted Status
Site Plan Approval 17 177914 STE 20 SA Jun 12, 2017 Under Review
 
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Kinda blah for Queen street. It’s one of the coolest streets and I feel needs something unique. If anything ever is to go on queen street... it needs to be unique or have a standout feature, Or something that makes you go “how’d they do that”? This current render is nice for suburbs but looks dull and uninviting for here.
 
I like it and can't think of a building on any part of this stretch of Queen that looks anything like it, making it quite unique indeed.

Also, it is replacing this (this is what we call a humungous improvement):

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The big change here is that the building is 1'11.4" or 593 mm shorter to better fit in with the Heritage Conservation District guidelines. Over half of that is coming from making the ground floor shorter. I'm not a fan of low-ceilinged retail spaces on main streets; I'd rather they'd taken more height from the upper storeys as I believe the ground floor should be the grandest. It's a reasonable building otherwise, but there's nothing grand in the design.

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interchange42 said:
The big change here is that the building is 1'11.4" or 593 mm shorter to better fit in with the Heritage Conservation District guidelines. Over half of that is coming from making the ground floor shorter. I'm not a fan of low-ceilinged retail spaces on main streets; I'd rather they'd taken more height from the upper storeys as I believe the ground floor should be the grandest. It's a reasonable building otherwise, but there's nothing grand in the design.

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Unfortunately it's tough to lease out office space without certain clear-height requirements.

The City is pushing really, really, really hard on this site, to fit in with the HCD Guideliens - not every building ends up being a standout / "grand", sometimes they just need to fit in. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets even more diluted after the next round of comments from the city. The LCBO got away with what it did because they took it to the OMB - unfortunately the developer here needs a much quicker turnaround and doesn't have the luxury of time, so the City calls the shots.

Ground floor is 4200 clear, or 14' - not exactly a "low ceiling" :)
 
I have the feeling, as I have on more than a few occasions, that the city is prioritizing height here to the detriment of overall design. Is it really better for the city to demand that a builder reduce overall height by a couple of feet in exchange for low ground floor ceilings? Is that going to improve the vitality of the street in any measurable way? Is shaving 1' 11" off the height of a building really going to change its impact on the heritage of the street? Who benefits from that kind of slavish adherence to rules? I have so many questions! I mean, it's a four-storey building, FFS!
 
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