Toronto Cherry Place | 55.7m | 13s | Rekai | Montgomery Sisam

[DSCToronto]

It's because the turning path / laydown area for construction vehicles is the entire sidewalk and boulevard along Cherry. The entire area will be closed for the duration of construction.

Any closure needs approval from TEYCC, I do not think this has been agreed to (yet). Do not misunderstand, i certainly support the building of this new facility but the City are far too ready to close sidewalks, block traffic lanes and cut down trees; other cities are more innovative and avoid these huge disruptions far better than Toronto.

 

[everydayhim]

This is what we were told, as well. The rear laneway is owned by Rekai, but used by Honda. It sounded like the parties couldn't reach an agreement and Rekai didn't want a fight to lead to further delay. As such, the entire boulevard along Cherry (including a lane of traffic) will be closed and used for construction staging -- all the trucks will pull in along this route. This is why the trees are being chopped down.

It's not an ideal situation, as it requires the sidewalk to be fully closed and the remaining traffic lanes to be reconfigured. I'm not sure what Rekai's backup plan might have been, but they gathered community support. We will obviously push them to restore the public realm as much as possible.

i have some inside intel on this project, and this is entirely correct. many, many conversations were had with Honda dealership to reach an agreement to no conclusion, Rekai made the call to push the schedule ahead and not wait on any further delays. Trees needed to be cut down for construction staging, their chance of survival if they were retained in a construction staging zone would be extremely low

one lane will be closed for construction yes, but this is part of a larger scheme, the permanent street change will see the removal of the parking lane and the widening of the sidewalk, after construction is complete

this is a poor City planning issue, to not be able to override these kinds of conversations and permit shared use of laneways in lieu of cutting down existing trees. but for anyone doubting alternate possibilities, go have a look at he site plan: the building extends from end to end of every property line. there is zero room on the site to actually make the construction activities of this building work