Toronto Concord Sky | 299m | 85s | Concord Adex | Kohn Pedersen Fox

ksun said:
You have been stuck in North American towns for too long.
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Towns?!?

I've lived outside North America and have travelled a fair bit too. I can't really think of another place that has overbuilt retail than the US in North America. However, I was referring more to active storefronts. Blocks of vacant spaces isn't really retail. I'm also referring to square footage which has little do with your preference of having retail evenly dispersed throughout a community over concentrated nodes on main arterials. Personally, I prefer the latter.

Ground floors of these condo buildings are not cheap to build. The high rents are not simply a case of gouging tenants. There may be independent operators that can afford these rents but, the risk of them going bankrupt during the lease term is higher than a corporate chain. The alternative doesn't seem to be better. Find a lot of retail condos are sold to speculators that don't seem to be too concerned with having the space occupied. Perhaps the best solution would be to give developers more leeway in what they can build. Let them build live work in areas that call for retail.
 
I think certain people have very narrow minded views as to what makes a city vibrant and probably shouldn't be using that term in the first place. Many small cities around the world and even towns have very energetic downtowns. Zurich, a city of 300k technically, has a very exciting and lively downtown for example. New Orleans has a very 'vibrant' central area and yet is much smaller than Toronto. Montreal has a exciting downtown. Toronto actually stacks up quite well in North America and abroad, has a very multifaceted and energetic downtown for the most part and pretty extensive retail. Toronto is a very well organized city, which more than makes up for any bizarre concerns about there not being enough retail as well. If the demand for more retail is there, there will be more retail. Also in this online world, a lot of retail is foregoing the expensive storefront, for a completely online presence, with distribution out of a home.

I'd be far more concerned about open space, parks, and institutional spaces in the city. They tend to make the city much more interesting to me.

(It's also funny when people accuse others of not travelling enough. You can just tell those are the type of people who travel as a competition, and then say "I did Paris" or "I've done New York" and "It's off my bucket list", like it's some personal feat they've accomplished. They go to take some pictures but don't really absorb anything of the culture. It's hard to take these people seriously when they talk about their knowledge of other places. You wonder if they even know well the place in which they reside.)
 
Urban-Affair said:
I think certain people have very narrow minded views as to what makes a city vibrant and probably shouldn't be using that term in the first place. Many small cities around the world and even towns have very energetic downtowns. Zurich, a city of 300k technically, has a very exciting and lively downtown for example. New Orleans has a very 'vibrant' central area and yet is much smaller than Toronto. Montreal has a exciting downtown. Toronto actually stacks up quite well in North America and abroad, has a very multifaceted and energetic downtown for the most part and pretty extensive retail. Toronto is a very well organized city, which more than makes up for any bizarre concerns about there not being enough retail as well. If the demand for more retail is there, there will be more retail. Also in this online world, a lot of retail is foregoing the expensive storefront, for a completely online presence, with distribution out of a home.

I'd be far more concerned about open space, parks, and institutional spaces in the city. They tend to make the city much more interesting to me.

(It's also funny when people accuse others of not travelling enough. You can just tell those are the type of people who travel as a competition, and then say "I did Paris" or "I've done New York" and "It's off my bucket list", like it's some personal feat they've accomplished. They go to take some pictures but don't really absorb anything of the culture. It's hard to take these people seriously when they talk about their knowledge of other places. You wonder if they even know well the place in which they reside.)
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To add to your last point, I find that many of those who obsessively complain about Toronto also seem to do nothing more than whine about wanting Toronto to be another city. As if what we should aspire to is to be a carbon copy of New York or Shanghai or Paris. Toronto is Toronto, warts and all. "Well Toronto would be better if it did what New York does!" or "Why can't Toronto organize itself like Paris?!" as if we can rebuild Toronto in the image of 19th century European or industrial American centres lol If you want New York, move to New York. I don't see why Toronto has to mimic other cities to be successful.
 
wolfewood said:
To add to your last point, I find that many of those who obsessively complain about Toronto also seem to do nothing more than whine about wanting Toronto to be another city. As if what we should aspire to is to be a carbon copy of New York or Shanghai or Paris. Toronto is Toronto, warts and all. "Well Toronto would be better if it did what New York does!" or "Why can't Toronto organize itself like Paris?!" as if we can rebuild Toronto in the image of 19th century European or industrial American centres lol If you want New York, move to New York. I don't see why Toronto has to mimic other cities to be successful.
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It doesn't have to mimic other cities, literally, but Toronto should definitely emulate certain aspects from other places and fashion them in a way that is unique to this city. We can learn a lot from different cities and adopt great ideas and be inspired by them. What we should be copying is the audacity that other cities possess and utilize that in more creative ways.
 
I think in time our streets will become more vibrant... we've only seen a renewed interest in the core over the last decade or so.

I would say that our city/streets tends to shut down at night. There are a few areas that are exceptions and are quite bustling, but generally I would say that our night life is fairly contained to a few pockets. We're also not building a lot of new office space outside of the south core and King St areas... which is unfortunate given that we're replacing a lot of it north of that area with purely residential projects. Mixed used communities obviously contribute to the vibrancy of a city.

I think saying that we're a well organized city is a bit of a stretch. Particularly given our sad transit... Anyway this is getting off topic.

Hopefully the retail for this project is done right.
 
torontologist said:
Maybe it's time we consider a size limit (say, 10-13 meters) to retail frontage in downtown Toronto, like they have in certain neighbourhoods in New York. It won't necessarily prevent the banalification of retail, however it will prevent monolithic bank blocks in podiums.
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I seem to recall a similar restriction being proposed by the City for new developments in downtown Yonge. Does anyone else recall this?
 
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