C-mac
Senior Member
I feel the same way about the Dominion building. As much as I like to see new towers go up, some buildings shouldn't be touched.
Toronto 49-51 Yonge Street | 226.86m | 62s | SmartCentres | a—A
- Thread starter Northern Light
- Start date
I feel the same way about the Dominion building. As much as I like to see new towers go up, some buildings shouldn't be touched.
cd concept
Senior Member
The Esplanade is one of them too! It connects beautifully with the cream coloured tower beside it. No matter how old it is it shouldn't be moved out of the equation!
daptive
Active Member
ProjectEnd
Superstar
Squeezing development onto the few remaining sites where zoning and the OP allow for it? I'll take 3-5 unremarkable, Cabbagetown, semis over this kind of thing all day long, but the powers that be don't believe that's an appropriate trade. So here we are.
Northern Light
Superstar
I like ya PE.
But we've been over the fact that there are lots of appropriate sites in the City and they aren't any more challenging to rezone, and probably less so in many cases.
On this site, Inviting public opposition aside, you have to spend the $ on a Heritage Impact Assessment, and possibly on mitigating the loss of heritage, there's still at the very least a rezoning and extensive planning process.
Its also a tight build, adding construction/demo costs; and the parkland (cash-in-lieu) is much more costly as well.
Developers can and are redeveloping both main street 'Avenue' sites across the City, tons of employment lands, and several current or former Yellow Belt sites as well.
To suggest that the only trade is building on one heritage site or the other heritage site in this 600km2 City is not reasonable.
Others are finding plenty of sites, and there are more still untouched.
Without a doubt the City could and should make several of those sites easier and less costly; but many today would already return a better yield than this site, because of a significantly lower price of purchase; and
a faster turnaround time.
Let me tack on that with MTSAs popping up like mushrooms on a damp forest floor, the eas(ier) opportunity is growing.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
And yet the economics have led SC to redevelop this one...
In a previous discussion you gave me a townhouse (maybe midrise) site out on Danforth at Warden. These sites are not the same.
Northern Light
Superstar
Greed is certainly a factor, so is laziness, lack of creativity; something SC is known for
That's true, there are lots of different types of sites though.
Look at what the prospective MTSA is causing at St Clair/Weston. Nothing about that land historically screams residential;
it's all employment lands, which until recently would have been thought of as entirely off limits.
Even if the edges were nibbled away at, the surrounding residential is all SFH.
Yet, here we are, looking at literally thousands of units, hirises/skyscrapers/retail etc.
*****
At the same time, we can look over at the Sheppard area between Bayview and Bessarion; what's being torn down?
Mostly single family homes, that are interior to the neighbourhood (away from the main street, which is Sheppard); along with some low-rise apartments, in favour of both midrise and hirise residential.
That's not the only location like that; there are several others, some even have explicit yellow belt zoning. That will change.
MTSA's in particular will open up a lot; but even without them, change is afoot in many areas.
ProjectEnd
Superstar
You can call it whatever you like, builders are always going to go for what's achievable and profitable. St. Clair / Weston is an interesting example to raise since minus Consolidated Bottle (77 Union), everything north of St. Clair is just legacy owners increasing the value of their land. They may chose to sell to builders down the line but for the time being, St. Helens and Stark Auto are just securing future permissions.
At a higher level though, I'm just not sure how you can't see that MTSA or not, 3-4, stick frame, houses downtown are not the same as an assembly in the suburbs. McGill / Granby, for example, is an insane underuse of that land, but, as long as the current regime reigns supreme, nothing will change.
UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
That's kinda my observation: SmartCentre buildings don't look so smart...
...I mean, I expect aerodynamic designs that shift the building mechanically in the direction of the wind and sunlight with that name. So they should really rebrand themselves as SmartValueCentres if their real intent is looking for cheapest ways to build 'em instead. They'll least give Concord a run for its money with that. /sigh
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goodcitywhenfinished
Active Member
I cant see this being too much of a blight from ground level as long as they don't slap their stupid orange penguins onto the facade
TossYourJacket
Senior Member
Still feels like a waste to throw away the nice interior of the heritage building for an elevator core though.
Edit: Just took another look and there is no retail proposed here. Just a office and residential lobby. So compared to an actively used pub, it'll probably have a deadening affect on the local streets.
Red October
Senior Member
This proposal makes me think of cordyceps. The building itself is fine in some other spot in the city, but here? Cordyceps.
Northern Light
Superstar
LMAO..... the places UT discussions sometimes go..........
For the record though, not all cordyceps have a morphology that resembles a synthetic phallus.
Some images for the uninitiated:
Though, depending on one's particular preferences, I suppose, some could be said to:
The two above images from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps
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So, dildo fungus.View attachment 378196
Though, depending on one's particular preferences, I suppose, some could be said to:
The two above images from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordyceps
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