Toronto Ïce Condominiums at York Centre | 234.07m | 67s | Lanterra | a—A

If holding out for more office towers means a few fewer Infinitys get built, I don't have a problem with that
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We will see fewer Infinitys by having the bar raised via the market place demanding better designed condo towers (to a large degree happening already), and the city getting involved with design committees....not by cutting the balls off the condo industry, which despite the odd mediocre Infinity, is doing this city a world of good.

Leaving development sites empty in this area waiting for office towers will more likely than not result in a gap-toothed neighbourhood for years to come...probably the worst case scenario for a giant brown-field site that already has a problem developing a neighbourhood feel as it is. Get the damned thing fully developed as quickly as possible...if it means mostly residential, I would hardly call that a negative thing.
 
freshcutgrass said:
Get the damned thing fully developed as quickly as possible...if it means mostly residential, I would hardly call that a negative thing.
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Filling up space with anything, be it offices or a Leon's or squat condos like Infinity, for the sake of filling up space, is a positive thing?

*cue Urban Shocker's "horror vacui" aria*
 
Filling up space with anything, be it offices or a Leon's or squat condos like Infinity, for the sake of filling up space, is a positive thing?
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Sorry, but I'm gonna have to issue you a red herring flag there.

There is no case of putting anything "for the sake of". No-one is suggesting lowering any standards to get the job done...just that the job needs to be done before the Railway Lands can be what they are supposed to be...a new, fully integrated part of downtown.

It's simply a case of a large downtown brownfield re-development that had originally been imagined to be mixed-use slanting more towards office, that the market has determined will instead be mixed-use slanted more towards residential.

One is not better than the other, but to try and create something the market does not need or want is not going to get better results.... quite the contrary.

Worrying about Infinityesque design is not just irrelevant to the point, but from what I can see, not a particularly big danger.
 
I don't have a problem with the 16 York proposal - any potential the area had is now lost, so a huge office/residential complex is at least one stroke better than par for the area. Quite a lot of land is being wasted in the area, though; Infinity is probably just the worst example (and it's far from just the design that I'm talking about...but one can't even suggest, for example, that perhaps a certain site should not get built over by condos without being branded as all sorts of things).

In the long run, the Gardiner/rail-lands are not helped by hurrying up and building as many condos as possible before the current boom ends to fill up the space. With their worrying about future office space, it seems the city is giving a damn about where condos go and not letting the market boss them around...people will buy any condo, anywhere in the city, after all, so the city simply does not need to allow so many so close to Union station.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
In the long run, the Gardiner/rail-lands are not helped by hurrying up and building as many condos as possible before the current boom ends to fill up the space. With their worrying about future office space, it seems the city is giving a damn about where condos go and not letting the market boss them around...people will buy any condo, anywhere in the city, after all, so the city simply does not need to allow so many so close to Union station.
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On the positive side as land becomes more scarce the market will dictate ever taller future developments. It would be nice to see future developments break the heights set by FCP and Scotia Plaza but why build a 100 storey building when you can build two 50 storey buildings?

And although there has been much progress over the past 30 some years there is still acres and acres of surface lots begging for redevelopment in the downtown core.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
It's kinda hypocritical for the city to be worried about doling over too much land to residential uses here when they freely approve projects with solely residential uses on other well-located sites. If a great office site is going to go residential, it should make good use of the property, like 300 Front West, and not be a waste of cladding, like putrid Infinity. I'm glad they're acknowledging or worrying about office space, though there will always be future opportunities for new buildings. There's plenty of short aging office buildings downtown that will be replaced by skyscrapers if all the redevelopable shacks and parking lots are soon eaten up.
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It all depends on what's in the Official Plan and Secondary Plans. It's very common for a property designated residential to be right beside a property that's designated mixed use or commercial. In the case of the railway lands, the whole area is designated mixed use, but only a handful of properties immediately to the south, east, and west of Union Station are identified as a commercial extension of the financial district. The rest was always intended to be residential.

Re: 300 Front, it's quite a bit farther from Union Station. Just because it could be a good site for an office building that doesn't mean it's no good for a condo.
edit - Looks like 300 Front is part of the King-Spadina area, where there are no land use rules. The relaxed land use rules in the "Kings" are widely considered a success, so why change that now based on a gut feeling that a specific site should have an office building?

scarberiankhatru said:
I don't have a problem with the 16 York proposal - any potential the area had is now lost, so a huge office/residential complex is at least one stroke better than par for the area. Quite a lot of land is being wasted in the area, though; Infinity is probably just the worst example (and it's far from just the design that I'm talking about...but one can't even suggest, for example, that perhaps a certain site should not get built over by condos without being branded as all sorts of things).
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Like I said, that property was designated for residential. There would have been studies figuring out how much land was needed for office buildings, and land designated accordingly. Just curious, how do you envision development in the area? I just don't see how you can come to the conclusion that any potential is lost.

scarberiankhatru said:
In the long run, the Gardiner/rail-lands are not helped by hurrying up and building as many condos as possible before the current boom ends to fill up the space. With their worrying about future office space, it seems the city is giving a damn about where condos go and not letting the market boss them around...people will buy any condo, anywhere in the city, after all, so the city simply does not need to allow so many so close to Union station.
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You're making it all sound arbitrary when it's anything but. It's all following the Secondary Plan except for 16 York, and that's why 16 York is being held up by Planning.

freshcutgrass said:
It's simply a case of a large downtown brownfield re-development that had originally been imagined to be mixed-use slanting more towards office, that the market has determined will instead be mixed-use slanted more towards residential.
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Don't forget that it's not approved and probably won't be slanted towards residential when it's all said and done.
 
urbandreamer said:
It's been done before in Toronto's 200 year history and it wouldn't surprise me if in the next 200 years it happens again: the city fills in more of the harbour: more office/industrial space created!
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The Islands become the new waterfront and the airport gets its (land) bridge
 
MisterF said:
Like I said, that property was designated for residential. There would have been studies figuring out how much land was needed for office buildings, and land designated accordingly. Just curious, how do you envision development in the area? I just don't see how you can come to the conclusion that any potential is lost.

You're making it all sound arbitrary when it's anything but. It's all following the Secondary Plan except for 16 York, and that's why 16 York is being held up by Planning.
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These things are always more arbitrary than they should be. One councillor wants something, one stakeholder doesn't want something else, etc.

What was the potential for the most valuable blocks of land in the entire city, between a stadium and an arena, right next to both a highway and Union station, immediately adjacent to both the waterfront and the CBD? Uh, how about anything? Plans may have slated most of the area for condos, but who says the plans are worth the paper they're printed on?

16 York is a fine addition to the area now that all it will be is random condos and offices with a vaguely downtown feel.

300 Front is one block farther, not "quite a bit," and it's already surrounded by office buildings. I also said it'd be a great site for a hotel or an institution or anything else. But a condo will fill the space quicker, which is what some people want.
 
In the long run, the Gardiner/rail-lands are not helped by hurrying up and building as many condos as possible before the current boom ends to fill up the space.
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Is there some advantage to waiting? The railway lands have been under development plans for over 40 years now...how long do you want to wait? The older 1980's plans for the railway lands had CN & CP development divisions having the vast majority of it office space...never could have possibly happened...and of course didn't. We would still be looking at a vast 100 acre wasteland below front with the CN Tower sticking out of it if.

But that's not what I find odd about your point...you seem to think there is some kind of compromise going on...while I say there isn't. In fact, I think not only will adding more residential be better because it gets the area developed, I also don't think there is such a thing as too much residential, and therefore, don't agree with your idea that the sites are less than they could have been because of their heavy slant towards residential. I think the railway lands are far better off as primarily a residential zone, with the healthy mix of office, commercial, recreational and sports/cultural developments it has, or will have.

If and when the markets dictates more office towers, there will always be opportunities for them...like I said, just the on-indefinite-hold and approved and u/c projects will cover anticipated office growth, and there are many more opportunities not yet explored. There's no danger in running out of opportunities to build office space.

Manhattan is as built out as any city...and yet they seem to find plenty of room for tons of office towers when the need arises...Toronto will be fine.

What the city does have to be concerned with, is making sure this area has all the proper infrastructure...schools, libraries, community centres, transit, etc.
 
There's always going to be room for offices somewhere downtown, but I was just acknowledging how rare the opportunity is to have a large blank tract of land in such a perfectly central and accessible part of the city. Lots of people on this forum - but not me - think Toronto's "finished" except for the condos that need to get built on every remaining bit of land. What could have possibly happened is irrelevant now that some condos are built and more condos and offices are on the way. And that's fine...it's getting built as a certain kind of neighbourhood and it can't be stopped so we should worry about making the area as functional and welcoming as possible (which hurrying up and filling up space will actually help). In terms of contributing to what the area will be - not some idyllic vision of what could have been - the 16 York complex should be a great success.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
Lots of people on this forum - but not me - think Toronto's "finished" except for the condos that need to get built on every remaining bit of land.
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I don't think anyone on the forum thinks that.

scarberiankhatru said:
What was the potential for the most valuable blocks of land in the entire city, between a stadium and an arena, right next to both a highway and Union station, immediately adjacent to both the waterfront and the CBD? Uh, how about anything? Plans may have slated most of the area for condos, but who says the plans are worth the paper they're printed on?
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How about some suggestions? Yes, Infinity is horrid at street level but what else? Seriously, I'd be interested in what you think should be in this area. As for the plans, I'm sure the planning reports are available to look at if you really doubt them.

300 Front is one block farther, not "quite a bit," and it's already surrounded by office buildings. I also said it'd be a great site for a hotel or an institution or anything else. But a condo will fill the space quicker, which is what some people want.
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It's about 3 times farther than 16 York. Residential would increase diversity in that area, which is all commercial. That's never a bad thing.
 
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