Toronto Hotel X (was Hotel in the Garden) | ?m | 27s | Exhibition Place | NORR

Definition of lipstick on a pig.

But, yeah, I'll take even that at this point.

I was at a Marlies game at Ricoh a couple weekends ago and I'd forgotten just how austere, lifeless, and car-centric that whole area is. It's really too bad that this development couldn't have made an effort at at least starting to correct that.
 
ADRM said:
This building is just all kinds of awful dreck. It really pisses me off every time I drive by from any vantage.

What grates on me the most is that, because of its location, this building and the terrible environment around it are going to be the only things that lots of people see of Toronto. They'll fly into Billy Bishop or Pearson for a conference or event, stay at that God awful hotel, not leave because it's not connected to rapid transit and you can't safely walk around anywhere near the building (and there's nothing to see or visit), and then they'll head back to the airport and leave. It could be a suburban Dallas convention centre complex.
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As reticent as I am to give this development an inch, I think you doth protest just a tad much there. You've struck a chord with me because Dallas is the one American city that I've been to that I never did actually see, particularly because I was at a suburban convention centre complex there.

This isn't that. There won't be anything particularly unsafe about staying at Hotel X, and the walk from the hotel to the Harbourfront and Bathurst streetcar stop at Strachan will take people just a couple minutes, so guests will not be that cut off here. Plus there's Uber. And, oh yes, taxis. The skyline and lake are both close enough here that they will beckon visitors out to explore no doubt, (I expect the hotel suites will have exceptional views here in fact), so I don't mean to criticize those aspects of this development.

It's the horrible, horrible blank walls at the northwest corner of the building which interface with the Stanley Barracks (or fail to actually) and which face the rest of the Exhibition Grounds which are unforgivable.

Tarring and feathering is illegal now, right? Pity.

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interchange42 said:
This isn't that. There won't be anything particularly unsafe about staying at Hotel X, and the walk from the hotel to the Harbourfront and Bathurst streetcar stop at Strachan will take people just a couple minutes, so guests will not be that cut off here.
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It had better be....there is a weekend a year where cars can't get to the place...right?
 
More than one weekend -- a couple of marathons, the Indy, a couple of parades and other events ...
 
interchange42 said:
As reticent as I am to give this development an inch, I think you doth protest just a tad much there. You've struck a chord with me because Dallas is the one American city that I've been to that I never did actually see, particularly because I was at a suburban convention centre complex there.

This isn't that. There won't be anything particularly unsafe about staying at Hotel X, and the walk from the hotel to the Harbourfront and Bathurst streetcar stop at Strachan will take people just a couple minutes, so guests will not be that cut off here. Plus there's Uber. And, oh yes, taxis. The skyline and lake are both close enough here that they will beckon visitors out to explore no doubt, (I expect the hotel suites will have exceptional views here in fact), so I don't mean to criticize those aspects of this development.

It's the horrible, horrible blank walls at the northwest corner of the building which interface with the Stanley Barracks (or fail to actually) and which face the rest of the Exhibition Grounds which are unforgivable.

Tarring and feathering is illegal now, right? Pity.

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Yeah, I do hear you. You're right to say that connection isn't entirely nonexistent and guest adventuring not impossible, but it's also a wide gulf between what we'll get here and what the ideal state could be. When I'm traveling for work, what I love is when the area around a hotel—especially one outside of the immediate city centre—is surrounded by a really inviting environment. I get that not all places can be that, but I still think more could have been done here.

What I think the space is really lacking is an area-wide masterplan that fosters better connection to transit and the lakefront (including the to-be improved OP).
 
If I were showing something at a trade show here, I might want to stay in the hotel here, but if I were a casual attendee of something at Ex Place, I'd rather stay somewhere where there was more city life outside on the street, I completely agree.

There's supposed to be a bridge from this hotel built across the street into the Allstream Centre. From there, there's already a tunnel under Princes' Blvd into the Direct Energy Centre. That's a convoluted route, but with those in place, people should be able to get in and out when the hotel is otherwise surrounded by something like the Indy.

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Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
'Cause people got me, got me questionin'
Where is the architecture?
 
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