Without a complete re-think............
My Eaton-Centre fix-it would be as follows:
1) Restore the original railings
2) Put back the trees
3) Put back the original Yonge-Dundas entrance, including vegetation and water features.
4) Have Nordstrom occupy the entire footprint of the original Eaton's, on the 3 floors on which it operates. It feels too tiny for the space of 'flagship/anchor store'.
In the non-restoration section:
1) Build a full glass arcade east-west on the Albert Street alignment from Yonge to Albert Street. (photo below shows the outline)
View attachment 299736
2) Enlarge the Indigo (It's seriously over-crowded, having absorbed the customer base of World's Biggest Bookstore and to a lesser degree, Chapters Festival Hall.
Expand the lower level to the same sized footprint as the upper level; include a full-set of internal escalators.
3) Make that Albert Street corner an intersection of secondary anchors, where the 2 arcades would meet.
Consider moving H&M to one corner, Samsung to another, and Uniqlo to the last. Have them all be the flagship locations for the City.
4) Remove the Yonge Street faux facade, build the 2 new anchors out to the street, with direct-street and in-mall access.
5) Have all the other Yonge-facing storefronts become restaurants with Yonge Street - only access; room for patios.
6) Level the Dundas Parkade Block. Move Cineplex back across the street to its original home, but with a flagship location with integrated restaurants facing Dundas at street level and an old-style
movie Marquee anchoring the new entrance to the Cinema on the 2nd level up.
Have the cinema take design cues from Paramount/Festival Hall/Scotiabank and have huge picture windows facing out to the City on both the Dundas and Bay frontages with 2-way vision glass allowing a vibrant interior to engage the outside and vice versa.
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Just my 2 cents.
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