Therion
Senior Member
That corner was nostalgic to me. When I first moved to TO I lived right across the street on Sherbourne. I saw my first hookers (transvestite and "regular") in front of it, the first drug deal... Precious memories.
Toronto 159SW Condos | 118.87m | 36s | Alterra | Richmond Architects
- Thread starter Mike in TO
- Start date
urbandreamer
recession proof
Tweeted by urbanation yesterday, and now making sense as the Kilmer Group used the firm for their service stations along the 401, the architecture will be by Quadrangle.
College Park
Active Member
Buying a condo in downtown and expecting the views to remain unblemished is sweetly naive (unless you're a battle-ax up to the fight.). That said, in this case I think a 20 story building would be a fair argument I've mentioned thiis before, but architects tend play around with detail more when the buidlings are smaller, and some fine grained detail would be pleasant and observable on this corner, given the excellent view planes. The St James area lacks variety in scale, with only the library actng as a foil to the unrelieved and boring repetition in this block.
CanadianNational
Senior Member
I live around the corner from where this is going up, and I actually think that 38 floors might be too tall. Highrises are starting to get plunked down on Sherbourne - none too lovely ones, either - right next to that thicket of highrises everyone loves to hate, St. Jamestown.
I wonder if the city is trying to ameliorate the 'wall' effect of St. Jamestown by allowing 'non-St. Jamestown' highrises to blur its wall-like edges. Or maybe no-one feels anything useful or lovely can come of St. Jamestown down the road - and the height zoning is obviously in place - so it's fine for the developers to just go for it and get maximum return out of a site.
Sherbourne has a lot of extremely low-rise historical properties on it. Right now the street's vertical element is getting somewhat harsh and abrupt from one section to the next. Up - down, up - down. The skyscrapers feel a bit alienating here, and the historical properties are by and large dilapidated. It's odd that with all this new development the loveliness or enjoyable feel of the street has not improved much.
I think a glassy, well-detailed mid-rise (about twelve to fifteen floors max) would be good for this site. One with some curves. I think they eye needs a break from the monotonous verticality of the area, and buildings that soothed relations between the streets low and high existing stock would be a bonus.
On a side note, Boy, is it ever good to see that gas station go.
I wonder if the city is trying to ameliorate the 'wall' effect of St. Jamestown by allowing 'non-St. Jamestown' highrises to blur its wall-like edges. Or maybe no-one feels anything useful or lovely can come of St. Jamestown down the road - and the height zoning is obviously in place - so it's fine for the developers to just go for it and get maximum return out of a site.
Sherbourne has a lot of extremely low-rise historical properties on it. Right now the street's vertical element is getting somewhat harsh and abrupt from one section to the next. Up - down, up - down. The skyscrapers feel a bit alienating here, and the historical properties are by and large dilapidated. It's odd that with all this new development the loveliness or enjoyable feel of the street has not improved much.
I think a glassy, well-detailed mid-rise (about twelve to fifteen floors max) would be good for this site. One with some curves. I think they eye needs a break from the monotonous verticality of the area, and buildings that soothed relations between the streets low and high existing stock would be a bonus.
On a side note, Boy, is it ever good to see that gas station go.
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AlbertC
Superstar
Hopefully this proposal can take advantage of the shape of the parcel of land. A nice curved podium like the Florian (but more substantial like 6-8 storeys) with decent tower on top would be nice, along with some retail amenities like a supermarket and LCBO.
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KLAUS
New Member
If the City would have any vision (and I am afraid they don't), they would keep that development in line with the existing buildings on the other 3 corners and give the area some character.
cdr108
Senior Member
what are the heights of Verve, 500 Sherbourne, Star of Downtown?
IIRC 38s is outside the range of the city's plan for building heights in that area.
AlbertC
Superstar
Verve is 39 st (126 m) and 500 Sherbourne is 34 st (109 m) (Emporis stats), so a 38s tower here would not be too far out of sync with other recent additions to the area. Preferably for this proposal, the tower should be set back from the corner, rising on top of a podium (6-8 st) that matches the other 3 corners of the intersection.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Sit in on any community planning meeting and tell me the City doesn't have a vision.
CanadianNational
Senior Member
Here's a Sketchup mockup of a building on that site, at 38 floors, or 400 feet in height.
From Carlton and Sherbourne looking north:
From Carlton and Sherbourne looking north:
whatever
Senior Member
That massing would be perfect in my mind, but I'd be willing to settle for a boxy point tower as long as the podium followed the street.
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Nice work there CN
Loozrboy
New Member
Just walked by and noticed they have a development proposal sign up... I wish I'd taken a close-up of the rendering, but I assumed I'd be able to find it on the city web site. Alas, I cannot.
SP!RE
°°°°°°
The shape/massing looks satisfyingly interesting and do I see lots of colour?!
AlbertC
Superstar
Hey Loozrboy, thanks for the heads up. This is the close up that I got from that proposal sign:
I like what I'm seeing so far.
I like what I'm seeing so far.
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