Toronto East Harbour GO and Ontario Line Station | 14.35m | 1s | Metrolinx

christiesplits said:
Hypothetically, what would the price tag befor a "trophy-level" East Harbour Station? Double the current cost?
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Someone here with an architectural or development background could speak to the specific previous design.

In general an arched-dome train shed over a corridor runs somewhere in the wide range of $60-250 per ft2. (that's ft2 of the structure, not the track area).

Assume the high end number, and some decent height and over-span............you might be in the 25-35M range....

The front of the building itself wouldn't cost much to make minor shape changes to, you're mostly talking posh cladding and some uplighting, maybe some nicer than average windows.

5-8M should cover that with change to spare.

IF you want to swank the main lobby area. Nicer ceiling , some stone, a handful of pendant lights and granite floors...........maybe another 4-6M

Very ballpark, as it would depend on how far you want to reach into the building.
 
Northern Light said:
You really have to walk that back. It is a cost incurred on behalf of a private operator, for which the government is liable.

That is subsidy by any reasonable description. Will that subsidy be offset by revenues?, clearly the answer is yes, how much so is a matter of some conjecture.

Excluding amortized cost of construction, a garage like this will have at least a 15M annual operating tab (lighting, staff, security, routine maintenance etc.



Really? If East Harbour Station is a prerequisite for the development proposed by Cadillac Fairview, What would the resulting tax generation look like?

Would a 'trophy' level of architecture here enhance that number by even 6-8% per annum?

Maybe its not such a write-off after all.



That's a big IF.



Lets use my numbers above.......and assume, 45M in net operating revenues.

But you have to offset ~400M in debt, financed at ?? ( lets assume its general government debt, which is being generous, ~4%)

Annual Ammortization ~13M per year. (at commercial rates ~18M)

So, net profit is something like 32M, maybe.

Your profit covers your costs to break-even in 16 years.

That's below what business would typically accept for ROI.

I expect more than double that on my investments.
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Yes. I'm not contradicting anything you said.

The garage is not likely profitable in a way which would attract private investment in it.. otherwise private investment would be building it. But it's effectively expected to "pay for itself", with the only subsidy coming through lost opportunity costs for the provinces financing dollars. My point was that it's not like the province is dropping $400 million on it that would otherwise be redirected - the direct subsidy is likely closer to a couple million depending on final traffic levels and drawn over decades of amortization.

Any development at East Harbour is only net new to provincial or municipal coffers if it would not have occured elsewhere without the station - it gets quite complex. Your point about this transit station not being a 100% write-off is not entirely wrong... just any profits the province / City will realize from this station will be quite abstract. Unlike the garage, which has an immediate and clear revenue source which offsets the vast majority of capital investment required for it.

To be clear I'm not supportive of the shed-like station happening here. The province should be putting up some extra cash to do it right. My point is simply that the Ontario Place garage is not receiving a provincial subsidy of hundreds of millions of dollars which can simply be redirected like many here assume. Cancelling the garage would free up a few million in amortization costs over the coming decades at best, and would then require a complete rethink of the entire Ontario Place redevelopment which would incur far more incremental costs.
 
For those looking at that the original vaulted, glassed-in station... it was part of a visioning exercise that came from a developer that gave up on their plans for East Harbour and sold off the site when its reception began to look weaker than anticipated. Site purchaser Cadillac Fairview never promised anything so grand, and their plans here have also had to take a hit as there is no longer a market for the 12,000,00 sq ft of office space that was supposed to help pay for a big deal station. At this point, it appears that CadFair do not have a good idea of what they are going to end up with here, including right beside the station, so there's simply no extra moneys being expended at this station right now. If CadFair had anchor tenants lined up for a couple of 1,000,000 sq ft office towers, and those tenants were demanding a grand station for their workers and guests to arrive at, then there'd be some money to splash out here...

...but there aren't, so there's nothing. Maybe some upgrades may come when the office market improves enough in the future, but for now? No cash.

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This placeholder station image has all the makings for a potential big government announcement. I don't see any reason why once all the track construction infrastructure is moving along well they couldn't come out with a new station design that excites everyone. Let's hold out hope :)
 
dob467 said:
This placeholder station image has all the makings for a potential big government announcement. I don't see any reason why once all the track construction infrastructure is moving along well they couldn't come out with a new station design that excites everyone. Let's hold out hope :)
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Dont mean to burst your bubble, but honestly when's the last time (asides from Union Station) that you've seen a station been substantially improved from a design perspective after being built?

I can literally count on my hands the number of times it has happened, and they've all been tied to accessibility improvements or the construction of an adjacent transit terminal. Asides from that, it rarely, if ever happens.
 
Amare said:
Dont mean to burst your bubble, but honestly when's the last time (asides from Union Station) that you've seen a station been substantially improved from a design perspective after being built?

I can literally count on my hands the number of times it has happened, and they've all been tied to accessibility improvements or the construction of an adjacent transit terminal. Asides from that, it rarely, if ever happens.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, and I haven't recently been to the site myself, but I don't believe the East Harbour station has been built yet...
 
dob467 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, and I haven't recently been to the site myself, but I don't believe the East Harbour station has been built yet...
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Nope.

And it's rare to see transit project "scoped up" as well, this one certainly wont be exempted from that generality.
 
interchange42 said:
For those looking at that the original vaulted, glassed-in station... it was part of a visioning exercise that came from a developer that gave up on their plans for East Harbour and sold off the site when its reception began to look weaker than anticipated. Site purchaser Cadillac Fairview never promised anything so grand, and their plans here have also had to take a hit as there is no longer a market for the 12,000,00 sq ft of office space that was supposed to help pay for a big deal station. At this point, it appears that CadFair do not have a good idea of what they are going to end up with here, including right beside the station, so there's simply no extra moneys being expended at this station right now. If CadFair had anchor tenants lined up for a couple of 1,000,000 sq ft office towers, and those tenants were demanding a grand station for their workers and guests to arrive at, then there'd be some money to splash out here...

...but there aren't, so there's nothing. Maybe some upgrades may come when the office market improves enough in the future, but for now? No cash.

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Yep. Between this and Park Lawn it's almost as if mortgaging huge pieces of public infrastructure on the whims of a market-driven developer is myopic and a waste of everyones' time. As much as I hate constantly seeing the Vaughan extension in my DC stack, at least it's paying something back, not predicating the possibility of that thing being constructed on the success of a private company.
 
ProjectEnd said:
Yep. Between this and Park Lawn it's almost as if mortgaging huge pieces of public infrastructure on the whims of a market-driven developer is myopic and a waste of everyones' time. As much as I hate constantly seeing the Vaughan extension in my DC stack, at least it's paying something back, not predicating the possibility of that thing being constructed on the success of a private company.
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I so want to 'like' this............. cause you're not wrong............'ish.... ; but....

I'm just asking if having a member of cabinet at the time of the decision whose family was significant owner of land along the route.....might have affected its development potential........ just a titch?

Honest, question, I mean I wouldn't know....
 
The Hub is insanely busy today. I would guess around 100 workers (exaggeration, I'm sure) on site this morning.

Some of the boards were taken down so I got some up close shots as well...

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Are they seriously going to call it “East Harbour Transit Hub”? It sounds like a mall atrium where you wait while your phone charges.

Seriously, what is a “transit hub”? Nobody talks like that. Nobody says “meet me at the transit hub.” Outside of the United States, this term is completely irrelevant. It’s an American planning term that somehow slipped into our vocabulary because someone thought it sounded important. It doesn’t. It sounds silly and fake.

Just call it what it is. East Harbour Station is perfectly fine. If they want to be accurate, it is technically a junction station, so East Harbour Junction actually makes sense. If they want to be trendy without sounding ridiculous, East Harbour Cross works too.

Any of these are better than “Transit Hub,” which sounds less like a station and more like a logistics warehouse for lost luggage.
 
6ixGod said:
Are they seriously going to call it “East Harbour Transit Hub”? It sounds like a mall atrium where you wait while your phone charges.

Seriously, what is a “transit hub”? Nobody talks like that. Nobody says “meet me at the transit hub.” Outside of the United States, this term is completely irrelevant. It’s an American planning term that somehow slipped into our vocabulary because someone thought it sounded important. It doesn’t. It sounds silly and fake.

Just call it what it is. East Harbour Station is perfectly fine. If they want to be accurate, it is technically a junction station, so East Harbour Junction actually makes sense. If they want to be trendy without sounding ridiculous, East Harbour Cross works too.

Any of these are better than “Transit Hub,” which sounds less like a station and more like a logistics warehouse for lost luggage.
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Names are still placeholders aren't they? Seems like they could change it once it's closer to completion theres a bunch of hypenated stations that could be renamed.
 
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