Toronto 88 Queen | 167.35m | 52s | St Thomas Dev | Hariri Pontarini

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YES! And so dies likely the single most offensive parking lot in all of downtown. It's disturbing that it was permitted in the first place, and allowed to fester for decades like an open wound.
 
Permitted?

It was simply there, as merely one huge parking lot among scores of 'em that dotted the downtown core for decades prior to this remarkable boom we're still going through. Take a look at any aerial photograph of Toronto from the 60s or 70s and you'll see tons of parking lots. One by one, they've succumbed to development pressure. But before that? Land was cheap and plentiful and there was no particular rush to develop all that acreage in one go.

This lot wasn't "permitted" - it's simply a dowdy legacy of an older, sleepier Toronto. The City had no hand in propagating its continued existence - there's nothing sinister or dark about it. And now it's going away!
 
I haven't confirmed this, but my understanding from someone who should know is that the supermarket in this development will be a 'City Market' (Loblaws) store.
 
Lenser said:
Permitted?

It was simply there, as merely one huge parking lot among scores of 'em that dotted the downtown core for decades prior to this remarkable boom we're still going through. Take a look at any aerial photograph of Toronto from the 60s or 70s and you'll see tons of parking lots. One by one, they've succumbed to development pressure. But before that? Land was cheap and plentiful and there was no particular rush to develop all that acreage in one go.

This lot wasn't "permitted" - it's simply a dowdy legacy of an older, sleepier Toronto. The City had no hand in propagating its continued existence - there's nothing sinister or dark about it. And now it's going away!
Click to expand...

One can assume that at some point decades ago, whoever owned the land had to apply for a demolition permit from the city to raze the buildings that used to occupy this massive lot. I'd love to know the details of what exactly transpired. I have a feeling Charioteer might have some intel...
 
Yeah, that's part of the story, no doubt. Before the onset of the car, there were other buildings - factories, warehouses, blocks of tenement housing.
 
A grocery store is much-needed at this location - hell, more of them are needed all over downtown. Great news if true and hopefully it's a sizeable one.
 
The number of parking erased this last decade is mind boggling. The ones remaining are usually 20 or fewer spaces between converted warehouses or towers in a park too small to support a development on their own. They are nearly endangered north of Queen. Another 5 to 10 years will erase the rest of the large ones.

The railways lands will also be exhausted in that time. Development should be a lot more interesting after that.
 
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