Toronto 80 Bloor Street West | 263.4m | 78s | Krugarand | Arcadis

Nothing special and no love loss

I've never been particularly enamoured with it either. I'm actually relieved to see that this proposal isn't for the tower on the corner, 1200 Bay, as it's one of my favourite brutalist buildings in the city.


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http://www.firstapexcapital.com/contact.html
 
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I worked at 80 Bloor West for 3 years. Still no love lost.

Strange building. When I worked at Banana Republic there 15-odd years ago we often had to use a freight elevator in that building to access some off-site storage rooms in the basement, and on a lark a buddy and I took the elevator up to an unused floor and the offices were strewn with hundreds of old rotary phones and Mad Men-era desks and other furniture. Can't even imagine what they would fetch on the vintage market these days. There were also long-standing rumours of closed off passages that led directly to Bay station and even Lower Bay, but I could never confirm that. I think the building *is* still connected to Bay station through a hallway near the gym but I think it's only open during the day.
 
"the banana store", I love it. The world's most exclusive retailer of Bananas! small ones! big ones! yellow ones! green ones!
 
Yeah, there is a connection to Bay Subway--and IIRC Larry Richards (ex-dean U of T architecture) is running some kind of design gallery/studio/think-tank down there...
 
There were also long-standing rumours of closed off passages that led directly to Bay station and even Lower Bay, but I could never confirm that.

As others have said, yes, there's a passage to Bay. A passage to Lower Bay would have you stepping on the third rail though!

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Well...the existing 80 Bloor isn't *that* bad. Decent early 70s concrete spec Miesiana; perfect background architecture for its time. And I wouldn't place it conspicuously beneath the coffered-window thing on the corner, either...
 

In this rendering, it looks like there's a slight setback next to the neighbouring office tower, but will that be enough? Seeing as Massey was nearly scrapped over such an issue, I wonder how the developer plans to address this. Perhaps that side has no windows? It almost looks like they might be going for something similar to the Residences @ RCMI.
 

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