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St. James Park Revitalization (PMA Landscape Architects)

Isotack said:
How long till the homeless tents, street art décor and activists arrive?
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The pearl clutching about the (unfortunate) symptoms of our city's poverty and drug use problem but no real urgency about dealing with the (very real and urgent) underlying causes is really unfortunate. Your post exemplifies it.
 
junctionist said:
I'm not a fan of what they did with the Victorian garden area near King Street. They installed generic poured concrete walkways. The pavers around the fountain feel sterile and generic too. I feel that the design language in the landscape plan is regrettably contemporary in general. It doesn't make much effort to relate to its historical surroundings like St. Lawrence Hall and St. James Cathedral. It's one of my least favourite downtown park revitalizations overall.
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They were always concrete - at least now they are wide and properly accessable for everyone, which is a key priority.
 
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DSC said:
Though I too prefer the look of pavers, but the City has a hard time maintaining pavers so good concrete (as this is) may really be the best solution. Frankly, it looks pretty sharp to me!
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Poured concrete typically looks nice in the first year. Once it no longer has that clean and new look, it's cheap, utilitarian, and generic. It's not the kind of pavement that seems well suited for an "old town" area. I really appreciate Claude Cormier's reluctance to use it in his designs (e.g. Sugar Beach and Berczy Park).
 
junctionist said:
Poured concrete typically looks nice in the first year. Once it no longer has that clean and new look, it's cheap, utilitarian, and generic. It's not the kind of pavement that seems well suited for an "old town" area. I really appreciate Claude Cormier's reluctance to use it in his designs (e.g. Sugar Beach and Berczy Park).
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Slight aside - He will have to use it at Love Park, albeit poured concrete with granite aggregate.

AoD
 
junctionist said:
Poured concrete typically looks nice in the first year. Once it no longer has that clean and new look, it's cheap, utilitarian, and generic. It's not the kind of pavement that seems well suited for an "old town" area. I really appreciate Claude Cormier's reluctance to use it in his designs (e.g. Sugar Beach and Berczy Park).
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Shock news: things that arent new don't look new!
 
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I was out for a stroll last night about 10 and they were testing/adjusting the 'patterned lighting' at St James. There are multi-coloured LEDs on a couple (?) of the taller light poles and they create a quite attractive (static) pattern on the 'plaza' at the 'bandshell'. One of the suggestions during the creation of the Master Plan was for a way to create 'seasonal lighting' effects and the ones I saw last night looked pretty good. I assume they can vary the patterns and colours. Sorry, no photo!
 
The Heritage Toronto plaque that was made in 2016 but not erected is up today - at the King/Jarvis entrance: My sources tell me that the City are aiming for an "early September" reopening of whole park - they want to allow the new sod to get established and still have a few minor things to do too.

Cholera.JPG
 
condovo said:
Is the "back" of the park along Adelaide getting a redo too? It looks pretty forlorn.
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It is being 'tidied up and there is a new and improved 'gateway' feature at the Adelaide Street entrance closest to Church Street. (similar to those on King St. The plans are WAAAY back in this thread.
 
DSC said:
I was out for a stroll last night about 10 and they were testing/adjusting the 'patterned lighting' at St James. There are multi-coloured LEDs on a couple (?) of the taller light poles and they create a quite attractive (static) pattern on the 'plaza' at the 'bandshell'. One of the suggestions during the creation of the Master Plan was for a way to create 'seasonal lighting' effects and the ones I saw last night looked pretty good. I assume they can vary the patterns and colours. Sorry, no photo!
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They were on tonight - no colours that I noticed but the pattern resembles light shining through trees - the effect is that the park is lit, but not overlit.
 
The pavers were installed at the northwest corner today. Looks like the only structural work left is to install the bust of the dead white guy there.
 
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