Toronto Nathan Phillips Square + Spirit Garden | City of Toronto

MetroMan said:
There's been quite a dramatic change. That you don't notice it speaks to the terribly slow progression. The improvements have been so gradual that you barely notice.

Moving the Peace Garden outside of the square did wonders for the square itself and for the previously abandoned western edge along Osgoode Hall. Remember we had that shitty cinderblock skate rental building? That was embarrassing. The new stage is quite nice and has created a welcoming grand entrance into the walkways. The walkways will eventually have to be redone. I hope they find a budget for that.
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You know what's embarrassing? That the washrooms are just as gross as the old ones in a new facility! The door wouldn't even lock in one of the stalls I went into.
 
Good news: Most of the originally planned work will get done in separate projects. The ceremonial ramp and the walkways in particular will get a round of funding when they're due for maintenance from the state of good repair budget.

Bad news: They're only due for refurbishment around 2019.

There's a possibility that this could get pushed up when City Hall's facade is to get cleaned and restored. That's supposed to happen after the PanAm games (after?? WTF?).

The Bay Street side isn't on any plans but the corner of Queen/Bay (the Chess parkette) will get paving similar to the one going in on Queen. There's work being discussed around Old City Hall's landscaping that might get Nathan Phillips Square's Bay Street side bundled in. The city is looking to widen the sidewalks along Bay street next to Old City Hall. Right now, they're too narrow and not very pedestrian friendly.

Some reason for optimism is that because the walkways will be done on their own budget, money may be found to replace the concrete walls with frosted glass around the entire perimeter rather than patch up or replace some of the segments that are falling apart. Removing the Sheraton bridge would happen under this same project.

Reason for disappointment: some of the furniture has already been replaced with cheap furniture that's not compliant with the design language pitched by PLANT architect — or with the City's own street furniture guidelines for that matter. Ugh...
 
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It's frustrating and disappointing that our most important civic space has been under construction for so long, much of it eliminated (for the time being) and furniture not even compliant with the design. I suppose on a positive note this will be the final winter of having to slug through the mud pit between the Queen St. sidewalks and the Square.
 
hum...sorry to disappoint you but that mud pit will still be there. Much of the grassed area is staying.

While there's a better pedestrian entrance on the SouthWest corner where the Churchill statue used to be and on the SouthEast corner around the Bay/Queen garage entrance — now paved — the entire central part is still grass. Unless they plan to landscape hills, bushes or tall grass in that large grassed area, people will make shortcuts through and it'll soon get muddy once again.

I know. It's depressing.
 
MetroMan said:
Reason for disappointment: some of the furniture has already been replaced with cheap furniture that's not compliant with the design language pitched by PLANT architect — or with the City's own street furniture guidelines for that matter. Ugh...
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Which furniture in particular?
 
^ Some of the benches were replaced and new ones added. Maybe they're not permanent since it looks like they just grabbed them out of a surplus closet.
 
I don't know how such relatively simple projects can go so over budget. Someone really needs to look at the books of these construction companies.

I wasn't too excited about the details of the NPS revitalization project when they came out, but now it feels a lot worse. All they had to do was knock down the walkways and automatically the square would have become much better.
 
Yes, it's clear that the walkways must go, along with any patches of grass. Urban design 101 really! As for the shameful and costly pace of progress here it does seem to be fairly par for the course in terms of public works in Toronto, and this is simply unacceptable.
 
This and Union station happened under the watch of Ford's and Dweezil Minnan Wrong, who prefer to blast Waterfront Toronto for their unavoidable budgetary issues. Useless hypocrites.
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
It's frustrating and disappointing that our most important civic space has been under construction for so long, much of it eliminated (for the time being) and furniture not even compliant with the design.
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Sadly, this is just indicative of what Toronto has become...a very prosperous city, yet has no interest in the public realm. This is blatantly obvious from the sorry excuse for politicians we elect, and the mostly moronic bureaucrats they hire.

Projects like this go off the rails because it is not a project anyone was ever really behind. Our elected officials are not proud of the masterpiece of architecture we built for them to work in, and they have no interest in maintaining it. It was just another one of those neglected, overdo infrastructure issues that had gone on so long they were forced into doing it. And it isn't as though we are Detroit...Toronto is a highly prosperous and rich city...we can more than afford to pay for this and many things...we just choose not to.

If this is how they (or really....we) treat our most prized civic building, and their own home, what does that say?
 
Tewder said:
Yes, it's clear that the walkways must go, along with any patches of grass. Urban design 101 really! As for the shameful and costly pace of progress here it does seem to be fairly par for the course in terms of public works in Toronto, and this is simply unacceptable.
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No, it's not clear that the walkways must go, not remotely.

In regards to acornman's contention that this was a relatively simple project, that perception can be extrapolated onto those in charge as one of the reasons why it went over budget. Once they got moving things around in the square, they found that the roof of the parking garage had more corrosion than expected, so suddenly, nothing is relatively simple.

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interchange42 said:
No, it's not clear that the walkways must go, not remotely.
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From which perspective though, a design perspective? The walkways intrude on views of the square and create a psychological separation from the city by defining an edge that doesn't need definition, an edge that doesn't make sense any more, if it ever did.

Instead, imagine the space entirely paved (no grass/mud patches) and stretching to Queen and Bay streets, the hard edges provided by the surrounding built form of the city itself (Old City Hall, Osgoode and the Sheraton Centre etc.)! I'd be interested to hear somebody justify how this would not be preferred (without resorting to the 'original design' defence).
 
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