Spaces (former WE Charity HQs, 345 Queen St E, TriAxis, 3s, Kohn Partnership)

[ChesterCopperpot]

So now its expensive to preserve heritage?

Yes - very much so

 

[teezapp]

Yes - very much so

Noted. Will remember that!

 

[artyboy123]

Yes, the current St Lawrence branch is below a residential building and gets frequent floods.

Also, very outdated location and not welcoming and when I walked by the area never really see many people inside...just personal observation!

 

[DSCToronto]

Also, very outdated location and not welcoming and when I walked by the area never really see many people inside...just personal observation!

Yes, it is not very visible from the street and it needs a major retrofit.

 

[Amare]

Yes, it is not very visible from the street and it needs a major retrofit.

I don't think there's any kind of retrofit that would save this branch, it just needs to be closed altogether in favour of another location that's closer to the waterfront.

 

[DSCToronto]

I don't think there's any kind of retrofit that would save this branch, it just needs to be closed altogether in favour of another location that's closer to the waterfront.

Agreed! It is a very poor space (though not a bad location) for a library.

 

[AlexBozikovic]

What about this site is inferior? If anything, its a MUCH better site for a library. The SLM location was tiny and would have resulted in a mess of a library with all the requirements needed to accommodate residential on site as well. This gives the community a better library, more space, better programming, and brings it closer to a rapidly growing neighbourhood with a high need for services, all while still being close enough to SLM.

No, this is not closer to where the population growth this happening. It’s about a kilometre away from the Distillery, as is the SLM, and this is much less walkable.

The SLM location is in a 200-year-old cluster of public buildings and an existing neighbourhood with a good degree of density. Building it there, particularly with housing above to provide a steady base of users, would have reinforced the library’s function as a third space.

The city knew in the 1970s that combining uses made for better places. Now the library wants big box style locations in single use buildings. That’s some backwards, suburban stuff that is bad for the city is a whole.

 

[teezapp]

No, this is not closer to where the population growth this happening. It’s about a kilometre away from the Distillery, as is the SLM, and this is much less walkable.

The SLM location is in a 200-year-old cluster of public buildings and an existing neighbourhood with a good degree of density. Building it there, particularly with housing above to provide a steady base of users, would have reinforced the library’s function as a third space.

The city knew in the 1970s that combining uses made for better places. Now the library wants big box style locations in single use buildings. That’s some backwards, suburban stuff that is bad for the city is a whole.

Yup, far away from population growth. The below also doesn't include the Corktown TOC.

 

[DSCToronto]

No, this is not closer to where the population growth this happening. It’s about a kilometre away from the Distillery, as is the SLM, and this is much less walkable.

The SLM location is in a 200-year-old cluster of public buildings and an existing neighbourhood with a good degree of density. Building it there, particularly with housing above to provide a steady base of users, would have reinforced the library’s function as a third space.

The city knew in the 1970s that combining uses made for better places. Now the library wants big box style locations in single use buildings. That’s some backwards, suburban stuff that is bad for the city is a whole.

The current SLM branch is in a 1980s era TPH building and is very second rate. It is small for a branch, has a poor street presence and is below apartments that seem to have many problems with water leaks. I do not disagree with you that it is possible to combine libraries and residential but it needs to be done carefully. Libraries are MUCH easier to manage if they have a few large floor areas not many smaller ones which also contain fire stairs and elevator cores going to higher (residential) levels.

 

[tripwire]

Also, very outdated location and not welcoming and when I walked by the area never really see many people inside...just personal observation!

It's actually quite busy IMHO. The problem is that it's not very visible and welcoming as you say; they put the children area on the street front, which also means no front door there.

It's definitely old - and there's a prevailing smell that never goes away - but I think the geographic location is really good with the big condos sprouting around it recently. I hope they eventually are able to keep this location and figure out a new plan on either updating it, or relocating it much nearer by.

 

[DSCToronto]

It's actually quite busy IMHO. The problem is that it's not very visible and welcoming as you say; they put the children area on the street front, which also means no front door there.

It's definitely old - and there's a prevailing smell that never goes away - but I think the geographic location is really good with the big condos sprouting around it recently. I hope they eventually are able to keep this location and figure out a new plan on either updating it, or relocating it much nearer by.

The LOCATION is fine but the building is NOT GOOD. They cannot expand the size of the library (or not easily as it would mean evicting other TCHC commercial tenants) and the building seems to have water leak problems on an annual schedule. Ideally, when Time and Space was designed they would have created a large enough area for a library there and then 'insulated' it from water leaks from above but they didn't so now they need new location for a branch somewhere in the same area or a bit further south.

 

[AlexBozikovic]

The existing building is not good and that’s not the point.