Toronto Clear Spirit | 131.36m | 40s | Cityscape | a—A

Actually that last photo with looming tower reminds me of my old nabe in Mtl: old mtl with square victoria office tower looming over the old buildings (and while kinda cool ultimately a bad move in city building/wrecking.)

Then there's the St Lawrence community--what a weird place that is!

Yep, if all the density in a few ____ Spirit towers had gone into gorgeous 6 story walkups in all that empty space around the DD we'd have a better city....
 
Tewder: The low "ribbon" building at the south end of the site may extend as far west as those parking spots, I'm not sure.

If you're going to insert multiple large windows into Rack House 'M' and gut the interior for condominiums as syn suggests - thus making it unrecognizable anyway - you might as well do the job properly, level the monstrosity, and start again with a lower podium building that matches the surrounding rack and tank houses, and a sleek tower that matches Pure Spirit - aA's fine solution.

Ganja now prefers parking to people, and advocates turning the eight floors of Rack House 'M' into a parking garage, maybe with large windows. An elegant solution indeed!
 
Urban Shocker said:
Tewder: The low "ribbon" building at the south end of the site may extend as far west as those parking spots, I'm not sure.

If you're going to insert multiple large windows into Rack House 'M' and gut the interior for condominiums as syn suggests - thus making it unrecognizable anyway - you might as well do the job properly, level the monstrosity, and start again with a lower podium building that matches the surrounding rack and tank houses, and a sleek tower that matches Pure Spirit - aA's fine solution.

Ganja now prefers parking to people, and advocates turning the eight floors of Rack House 'M' into a parking garage, maybe with large windows. An elegant solution indeed!
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I believe what he meant was using that as a parking garage instead of using the base of the new tower as one.

You don't have a problem with that parking garage, why would one housed in the Rackhouse be a problem?
 
Urban Shocker said:
Ganja now prefers parking to people, and advocates turning the eight floors of Rack House 'M' into a parking garage, maybe with large windows. An elegant solution indeed!
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No, not my preference, but preferrable to demolishing the old building and building a new unsightly parking garage at the Pure Spirit site. My preference would be to convert Rackhouse M into some sort of performing arts theatre (which doesn't require windows as Jack Diamond has shown us) or into a residence where windows could be added. It could be a cool loft building, especially with the old Gooderham and Worts signage on top. Adding windows to Rackhouse M would keep it more recognizable than "preserving the footprint" (which I'm still trying to figure out) and recycling its bricks.
 
I think u2 is the only one who thinks the Rack House 'M' podium will become a parking garage. The renderings show the new podium building as mostly residences with some retail at street level. How would anyone drive their cars into a pedestrian district?
 
Urban Shocker said:
I think u2 is the only one who thinks the Rack House 'M' podium will become a parking garage. The renderings show the new podium building as mostly residences with some retail at street level. How would anyone drive their cars into a pedestrian district?
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It doesn't make more sense to you to have the Rackhouse converted to a parking garage and have a proper base with retail and residential at the Pure Spirits development?

As for how people would get out, it could be an underground exit.
 
Pure Spirit does have a proper podium base, with retail, residential and parking.

Where's the logic in turning the windowless Rack House 'M' into an eight storey parking garage, marooned in a prime location in this pedestrian neighbourhood and accessed only by a subterranean tunnel?
 
Brick all the NIMBY's in there too. Encase them all in concrete, like the reactor at Chernobyl, lest they contaminate people with their ideas.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Pure Spirit does have a proper podium base, with retail, residential and parking.
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But mostly parking.

Urban Shocker said:
Where's the logic in turning the windowless Rack House 'M' into an eight storey parking garage, marooned in a prime location in this pedestrian neighbourhood and accessed only by a subterranean tunnel?
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Where's the logic in tearing it down when it could be restored and enhanced?

I wouldn't be surprised if a significant amount of the new base will be devoted to parking. They're going to have to put it somewhere...
 
US, everyone's a Nimby at some point--rack house M would have to be expanded to fit all of them!

For example, if I were to pee on your front lawn would you be a Nimby Us? What if I moved in next door and proposed chopping down all my trees? Or rented the place out to homeless people?

I spent Saturday afternoon chatting with some Y+E NIMBIES--an older couple who were sneering at all the "glass boxes" going up around town and most of post-war toronto; "yuckitecture" was their term for concrete toronto. Hilarious and hey I mostly agreed with them!
 
Most of the Pure Spirit podium building is housing and retail at street level. There will also be parking underneath the ribbon building.
 
Tewder said:
The part I don't like about the picture is to the left, i.e. the parking lot and boring low-level developments that fade away to nothingness around the district. Conversely, the addition of new towers creates a nice backdrop and frame to the district, old plays off of new, and the urban fabric gets another layer. To me, this is far more interesting.
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Ah, yes. The true counter-reaction to Jane Jacobs. Trendy skyscraper-loving twerps blithely dismissing the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood as "boring low-level developments". Even though I agree that Ganja's "Ruined Landscape" label for the tower-looming-o'er-the-distillery photo is a little banal...
 
Even though I agree that Ganja's "Ruined Landscape" label for the tower-looming-o'er-the-distillery photo is a little banal...
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Yeah, it's a bit obvious. What do you recommend?
 
Not a recommendation, more an acknowledgment that the view doesn't look "ruined" *enough* to merit such a label--you need something harsher...
 
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