Southcore Financial Ctr: PricewaterhouseCoopers Tower (18 York St, bcIMC, 26s, KPMB)

I see your point Traynor^^^

Lake Ontario is probably the worst of the great lakes in terms of geographical beauty and for sanitary reasons... For Toronto, Lake Ontario is all we've got so folks around this town don't really mind the view of "the lake"... For example, Chicago's lake Michigan is freakin sweet! It's clean too and has some nice beaches !.... Toronto is a North/South city as it moves away from the lake... Many cities run along the lake so there are fewer waterfront views in Toronto... And to the north, i would say 70% of the views of the city are gone for both MLS and ICE... But from the non-skyscraper-geek standpoint, i don't think the view is what people buy their units for. Of course they do care what they are seeing but many purchase units due to their location, pricing, etc... But this is apart of city life, most people downtown don't get the best view in the city, and sometimes they end up looking at a another building for the rest of their life... Many downtown condos these days have crappy views like that... For example, TRUMP: the renderings NEVER depicted Bay Adelaide Centre to the north... 90% of the north facing units in Trump Tower will be blocked out by BA. If i were in that persons scenario... It would SUCK!

I agree that the positioning of the towers wasn't the best... (unless you have a penthouse suite :D)
 
Traynor said:
In my opinion it's too bad the condos and the office buildings in this part of town didn't switch places. I mean the city views for most of MLS and Ice are gone before they are even occupied or built!

For some strange reason the sales pitch and marketing for condos south of the Gardiner is all about "Lake" or "Water" views. I say one word about that... BORING! It's Lake Ontario, not the South Atlantic off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. It's flat, it's boring, it has no amazing landscape features, no stretch of white sands, no glamorous cruise ships arriving and departing. ZZzzzzzzzzzz

This is a city... I want to see tall buildings and busy street life. Let's face it, Toronto is lacking in the fascinating geographical features department: No mountains to scale, no wide rivers to bridge and a fairly flat terrain, so what makes it interesting IS the city.

I know all the buyers at City Place and the like, will respond with all the myriad of reasons why their view is tranquil and relaxing, but I guarantee one thing: When they have visitors to their units, the first thing they go for is the window facing the city. If they don't have a piece of the city in their view, you will see the slight disappointment on their faces. Want proof? Go up the CN Tower and see how many people are on the south side of the observation level.

So when I saw the design for Ice and the 16 York office component, as well as 18 York behind it, I was disappointed yet again. The designers of these condos must hail from Miami, where the Ocean is way better to look at than the rest of that city.
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I agree 100%. The lake views of both ICE and MLS are generally blocked by the condos on Queens Quay as well. As soon as I saw the view from my condo in Montage (I'm renting) I was sold on the unit. I look east and have an amazing view of the entire city, it is stunning at night.
 
steveve said:
I see your point Traynor^^^

Lake Ontario is probably the worst of the great lakes in terms of geographical beauty and for sanitary reasons... For Toronto, Lake Ontario is all we've got so folks around this town don't really mind the view of "the lake"... For example, Chicago's lake Michigan is freakin sweet! It's clean too and has some nice beaches !.... Toronto is a North/South city as it moves away from the lake... Many cities run along the lake so there are fewer waterfront views in Toronto... And to the north, i would say 70% of the views of the city are gone for both MLS and ICE... But from the non-skyscraper-geek standpoint, i don't think the view is what people buy their units for. Of course they do care what they are seeing but many purchase units due to their location, pricing, etc... But this is apart of city life, most people downtown don't get the best view in the city, and sometimes they end up looking at a another building for the rest of their life... Many downtown condos these days have crappy views like that... For example, TRUMP: the renderings NEVER depicted Bay Adelaide Centre to the north... 90% of the north facing units in Trump Tower will be blocked out by BA. If i were in that persons scenario... It would SUCK!

I agree that the positioning of the towers wasn't the best... (unless you have a penthouse suite :D)
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Not sure what you mean by worst in terms of geographical beauty...Care to elaborate?
Actually Toronto's development running North-South away from the lake gives more buildings a view.
Chicago has a "wall" effect you see along the waterfront so that pretty much only the building closest to the lake has a view.
Chicago-Shoreline.jpg
 
I was talking about the lake view in general... there's not much to "wow" about Lake Ontario...

In that photo of Lake Michigan, you can see how nice their beaches are and how the water of lake michigan really shines...
 
steveve said:
I was talking about the lake view in general... there's not much to "wow" about Lake Ontario...

In that photo of Lake Michigan, you can see how nice their beaches are and how the water of lake michigan really shines...
Click to expand...

Wait a minute, so Chicago's lake water shines better than ours??? I agree that Toronto's weather is fairly consistently dreary but on a sunny day the water is spectacular and second to none. Besides, the Toronto islands off shore also add interest that I don't see in the Chicago picture.

No question the Toronto waterfront has a lonnnnnnnnnnng way to go to be developed to any degree matching that of Chicago's but there is potential. Now what we do with that potential is another matter and indeed Toronto's love of mediocrity and the second-rate does not leave one with much hope (see Corus for an example). Still, the views over the water are nice if you're lucky to have one.
 
Tewder said:
Wait a minute, so Chicago's lake water shines better than ours??? I agree that Toronto's weather is fairly consistently dreary but on a sunny day the water is spectacular and second to none. Besides, the Toronto islands off shore also add interest that I don't see in the Chicago picture.

No question the Toronto waterfront has a lonnnnnnnnnnng way to go to be developed to any degree matching that of Chicago's but there is potential. Now what we do with that potential is another matter and indeed Toronto's love of mediocrity and the second-rate does not leave one with much hope (see Corus for an example). Still, the views over the water are nice if you're lucky to have one.
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Well for the most part, i believe Chicago's water is better than ours for a few reasons. (its not just our weather)
They have more beaches, white sands, crystal clear water (for the most part), skyscraper filled coastline, chicago river, etc...

Toronto's waterfront is not the greatest imo, but its currently being developed with the huge waterfront plan to the east... The Toronto islands do add a nice little touch however, i think Toronto is kinda cut-off cause we're surrounded by alot of islands/land masses/peninsulas like the Toronto Islands, City Centre Airport, Tommy Thompson park, Port Lands, etc....

If you take a look, we're surrounded by all sorts of land masses:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...845,-79.344292&spn=0.126232,0.308647&t=h&z=12



*Also, the gardiner expressway and the railway tracks have always kept Toronto from truly being attached to the lake.... i think thats why they are/might/were going to tear down a portion of the gardiner.... We can't have a continues strech of downtown without being cut off by the railway tracks/highway...

Its not too much to complain about but there's still alot of work to be done :)

But i'll be positive in saying that we do have a great deal of fresh water and we're lucky enough have a waterfront :)
 
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I wonder if they truck in that white sand?

Your points are valid Steveve, even if I do personally prefer the presence of the islands. Chicago's pride in its waterfront is clear and evident, and it is indeed beautiful. Toronto's will probably turn out very functional and pleasant, if not spectacular like Chicago's, which is sort of in keeping with the different identities of the two cities to start with.
 
There are spectacular parts to Chicago's waterfront but overall, I wouldn't call it spectacular. Toronto's has greater potential for stardom eventhough the nautural setting isn't as grand. (debatable really) The biggest plus being that our throughfares aren't directly on top of it.
 
They probably are just building the underground parking garage and then capping it.
 
To bring this back off topic, I've been to Chicago many many times and I have to say that their waterfront is highly overated. We have much more potential with ours as long as we don't screw it up.
 
I have to agree. I think the layout of our waterfront is much more interesting. I'd rather look out and see lush, green islands than just open water like most places have. The islands and things like The Leslie Street Spit make Toronto's waterfront unique, interesting and beautiful. Sorry but I don't have Chicago envy. (NYC, maybe a little lol)
 
As much as I hate to, I am going to contribute to the off-topicness here.

I visit Chicago a few times a year. For a variety of reasons, it is my favourite city to visit. I have never understood, however, our envy of their waterfront nor our shame in our own.

When I ask people they usually are thinking of the stretch of Lakeshore in Chicago north of downtown. The open nature of the waterfront there allows you to see the water and the people on the beach with a view unobstructed by buildings. Then those people compare that to standing at, say, Yonge and Lakeshore here.....not realizing that they are essentially staning at the equivalent of Ohio and Columbus...where you also can't see a lake! If you go a similar distance east or west of Yonge you will find open stretches of waterfront with beaches as well.

Then they usually say....but no one uses our beaches because the water is dirty. I am not sure how much dirtier our water is than the water in Chicago? I know that we close our beaches more often than they do...but does that mean the water is dirtier or does it mean we have a lower tolerance/standard for bacteria levels? I do recall a few years ago the Star running an story about how our standards were tougher than a lot of places where Torontonians often visited for beach time....I wish I could find the article but, as I recall, they superimposed our standards on a lot of other public beaches and the result was that if the standards were the same, our beaches were not the only ones that would close (and I can't remember if Chicago was part of this exercise or not).

The point is, I don't think our waterfront is all that different from Chicago's....I do know that our perception of our waterfront is much different than their perception of their's....and that might be a harder issue to overcome in the long run!
 
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