Toronto 100 Queens Quay at Sugar Wharf | 117.34m | 25s | Menkes | B+H

ProjectEnd said:
I disagree. That part of the block is already not parkland so this was / is a way to bring pavillion-style animation to it. With regard to the bridge itself, how would you propose to bring kids from the third floor to grade across a busy street? This solution seems pretty obvious to me...
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Which is why one should question the decision to make part of the block not parkland in the first place - and chosing to do so (and locating the school within the podium) instead of having the school as part of the park block instead. I mean how many floors does the proposed school occupy? One floor?

AoD
 
The size of the park is one of the few things that is set in stone (via the Lower Yonge Precinct Plan) so reducing its size or locating a school on it is not possible. It therefore has to find a home in one of the podiums and since the LCBO block is all office / commercial, it has to go in one of other two remaining. The one diagonally to the north is smaller, more complicated to access and will be in shade from the LCBO block most of the time. By process of elimination, that leaves this one.
 
The school occupies part of the third floor of the podium (only), with more floor space than they intend to use for the pavilion on the park lot. Putting the school on the third floor right by the bridge over Freeland Street puts the community centre that's going into the 1-7 Yonge development conveniently close—close enough that its facilities can be used by school kids, and reducing the cost and size of the school. Bridging Harbour Street to get kids down to park level fast is another way of maximizing the space in the area: the park is also the school yard, and there's nowhere else in Toronto that we would accept a school yard that kids would have to cross a busy street to get to during recess.

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ProjectEnd said:
Peter reiterated several times: this is a large project and it's at a very preliminary stage. Much is in flux in terms of density, massing, loading and servicing, programming, access, urban design and, above all, 'architecture'. The latter, he was careful to note, isn't there yet. In fact, it isn't there at all. So for you to grumble about what is or isn't 'architecturally appealing' is pretty rich.
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In that case they should have kept it as white box massings emphasizing the general design moves until the public reveal.

aA tried to tart it up too much and created the false sense of design being further along than it supposedly is.
 
jje1000 said:
Should have kept it as white box massings until the public reveal.

aA tried to tart it up too much and created the false sense of design being further along than it supposedly is.
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Peter stated repeatedly, as we reported in the front page story, that he does not want anyone to think this is far along. I'm not sure how much more he should have done or we could have done to stress that there is no design yet.

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aA may not be following the Lower Yonge Precinct Plan as closely as possible, but it's Menkes, of course, who are dictating to him how much space they want. Whether the City will accept that density, we don't yet know. I suspect though, that if they do not, then a lower density would come from the chopping of a few floors at the tops of the towers, with little if any reduction to the podiums.

In regards to the park lot, Menkes is required by the City to hand over X amount of space for it, and they are proposing to do that. It just so happens that the amount they are required to give is less than the amount of space on that parcel. If the City wants all of that parcel for the park, then that would only come from more negotiation, which would likely either come from the City having to buy some of the space from Menkes, or allowing greater density on the rest of the site. Meanwhile, Clewes did argue that with the south side of Harbour having shops and restaurants on it just like the north side, you make the street more vibrant. Restaurant patios could then overlook the park as well.

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Skeezix said:
Good points. Personally, I much prefer the underground PATH, except where underground passages simply are not feasible (i.e. the connection between RBC Waterpark and ACC). I don't feel that a +15 system pedestrianizes the street level and public realm anymore than an underground PATH, and it simply adds visual clutter/impacts views. But reasonable people can disagree on that, and you made a good point about views from the +15 connections.
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Both types of PATH (above/below) seem kind of odd when the purpose is to pedestrian-ize an area. Seems more logical that in place of PATH we instead carve out a few areas of turn-of-the-century storefronts from areas downtown and tie into the bases, into the laneways, and strive to make the streetscape the only place to be. But if we are to do PATH, which seems to be the case, I dunno... even if it were to cost more +15 style still seems like it has greater pro attributes vs underground.

What about further east of the property, has it been stated that Daniels or other EBF properties are to have PATH (and if so how are they going about it)? Interesting to think that one day I could walk from the Eaton Centre to Parliament and Lake Shore without going outdoors.
 
The City contends that there will be too many people living and working here for the sidewalks to handle pedestrian movements alone. They expect 4,000 people to walk into the core every morning from these few blocks. Those sidewalks would be particularly difficult during winter blizzards (or rain at other times of the year), so they want the protected walkways there to stop those down there from consider taking their car instead. (There will be those riding TTC buses, or the LRT as well, once it's built. Not sure what number they expect on transit, but it's above and beyond the 4,000 pedestrians.)

And again, keeping kids off the roads when going between the third floor school and the community centre in 1-7 Yonge or the park, is another reason they want the PATH.

Still, the City does not seem to be worried about there not being enough animation at street level with the densities being proposed here. With this many people, the sidewalks (with a high quality public realm) will still be a popular place.

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interchange42 said:
The City contends that there will be too many people living and working here for the sidewalks to handle pedestrian movements alone. They expect 4,000 people to walk into the core every morning from these few blocks. Those sidewalks would be particularly difficult during winter blizzards (or rain at other times of the year), so they want the protected walkways there to stop those down there from consider taking their car instead. (There will be those riding TTC buses, or the LRT as well, once it's built. Not sure what number they expect on transit, but it's above and beyond the 4,000 pedestrians.)
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Ah, that makes sense. And yeah "PATH" or not, there's a certain degree of dynamism associated with things like pedestrian bridges. Some can argue that we're doing this to cater to the auto (e.g further separating roads from the public realm, not increasing ped x-ing countdowns), and they might be right to an extent. But on a more basic level they are pretty neat for the pedestrian. I believe we're doing one at Spadina mostly for the benefit of schoolkids to safely cross, and I think they should be considered lucky. Wish I got to have a ped bridge to cross the street when going to school.
 
I don't understand people's issue with the bridges especially for students. Sure it's very retro future Zeidler-ish but that is why I like it. In fact why not push it even further make it an old eaton centre Ontario place pod podium. That would be cool.

I will wait to voice too much of an opinion on the towers until there is something to comment on. I like that much height near the lake, I enjoy cities that do that. I don't know if we really need two sets of same height twin towers though. Maybe?
 
jje1000 said:
In that case they should have kept it as white box massings emphasizing the general design moves until the public reveal.

aA tried to tart it up too much and created the false sense of design being further along than it supposedly is.
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Exactly! Whether at the meeting or not, I believe one is able to garner a good amount of information from their boards/renderings etc. Yes, I admit, it would benefit my opinion to some degree, to have the architect's words floating around in my head, while reviewing their work. But please let's be honest - work in progress or not, so far this looks cobbled together from older projects and ideas, some already built (Ice). Furthermore, sure talk is cheap, but then again so is your condescending rebuttal - like I would have no clue about anything, lest I was privy to the community meeting.

p5
 
Attendance at the meeting was not critical in catching this info, as I have already posted. Our front page story also clearly states that no "architecture" has been chosen for these buildings yet. We do what we can to avoid misunderstandings by reporting everything pertinent that we can.

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Not for nothing, and not necessarily directly in contradiction to anything anyone here has said, but I do think it's a very Toronto thing for some people to automatically bristle at the notion of a school that isn't at-grade. You see that in cities all over the world and there's no reason why it can't work, provided that there is proper provisioning for it.

That sentiment feels similar to the all-too-present assertions in Toronto media right now that families can't or don't want to live in apartments/condos.

Our city can and should become much, much more dense, and this site is a logical spot to add significant density. In this particular case, that may mean a non-ground-floor school, and that's just fine. I don't think it's fair for the architects or developer to wear criticism stemming from that reality.
 
Of course we can become much denser and perhaps even should. I'm just not entirely settled that these pockets of hyper density is the right way to increase overall density. It's being discussed that sidewalks won't be sufficient for the traffic generated by the residents and workers. The residential population per tower could be as high as 1500 initially and could reach 2000+ once the residents start families like so many downtown condos built before 2005. That's out there.

I wouldn't want to live there. I probably wouldn't visit there either. Looks like there are people that do and that's what counts. These Arcologies will make the skyline bigger and neither is it reinterpreting our existing, more human scaled neighbourhoods as it's a no mans land right now.
 
ADRM said:
Not for nothing, and not necessarily directly in contradiction to anything anyone here has said, but I do think it's a very Toronto thing for some people to automatically bristle at the notion of a school that isn't at-grade. You see that in cities all over the world and there's no reason why it can't work, provided that there is proper provisioning for it.
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Funnily enough there's a public school on the second floor just up the street at Lower Jarvis and Esplanade (across Jarvis from Market Wharf).
 
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