WiddleBittyKitty
Felis catus
Vibrancy on Yonge, yet what's on Yonge St. right now? Cash stores, and a good amount of them. Infact, on one block I counted 3 cash stores. How are cash stores, that are currently on Yonge St., vibrant? (since some of you are stating how a bank will not add vibrancy and not liven up the street). We are talking about one retail unit in FIVE having a bank and all of a sudden everyone is up in arms.
There may be three cash stores on one block of Yonge, but there aren't three cash stores on all or even most blocks on Yonge. The complaints about a bank don't stem from wanting to improve on the worst example of the street life.
The complaints come, I believe, from the expectations that Mod has raised for this project. They have been quite specific (and I have believed sincere) about their intention to do a superior job of city-building on this block, with particular attention paid to the restoration (and I suppose on Nicholas St the replication) of the heritage elements. All of that means a more tactile, more humane, more urbane experience for the passersby. Renderings have led me to expect gourmet food shops and boutiques and the like.
Instead, the first announcement of new retail is for that most mundane of curbside offerings, the bank. How many storefronts it will consume we do not yet know. Banks often take up two or three units. At One Bedford where there were once a slew of restaurants, fast food joints, pubs and convenience stores and we now have a BMO and a Shoppers Drug Mart. It's a dreadful letdown, a missed opportunity to show leadership, and a loss of character and interest for the city. The condo gets two fail-safe tenants and the city gets next to nothing back.
Many threads on UrbanToronto complain about the typical retail we get with condos; the bank, the Shoppers Drug Mart, the Subway subs, the the dry cleaners. We were promised better than typical at Five, but suddenly it seems we are not getting it.