Truth be told, if the design were of Kirkor, etc., quality, then I would want to scrutinize much more thoroughly the events that brought this project to this point. I have been a bit of a champion of this project since I first saw it, as I believe that we are getting a worthy and notable design which strikes just the right tone for Exhibition Place - it has monumentality without being overwhelming, it is playful without being garish, it is clean and modern while still being detailed and while paying respect to the past - so others might see me as too easily being inclined to accept Councillor Pantalone's version of the events here. For the purposes of full disclosure, I also must declare that I introduced myself to Mr. Maragna after seeing the impressive presentation boards, and we have since had some friendly discussions.
Torontovibe's quick dismissal of Rocco Maragna with
"They hired him because he has experience designing a high school? lol Is that crazy or what!" is completely disingenuous and unfair, unless of course Torontovibe did not read the entire Toronto Star article, in which case he is guilty of being the typical crazy who jumps up at meetings screaming about something he hasn't bothered to fully understand.
TOAreaFan's assessment of the process seems reasonable to me, but I would like to add some of my own thoughts regarding what is going on here.
In the Star article, Rocco Maragna is quoted regarding HK Hotels owner Henry Kallan saying "He said he finally realized that time was of the essence. He said he didn't know any architects here and asked me if I would like to design the hotel", and the article goes on to detail the approval process for the project at Exhibition Place, and Mr. Maragna's resignation from the board. There are a couple of things that the article doesn't really say though, and there is a bit of a slant that looks fishy to me.
First: The Star's title for the article,
Insider wins $100M contract, is meant to be sensational, but unsurprisingly it is misleading. Mr. Maragna will take home a tiny fraction of the total cost of the project $100M. His small office here has attached itself to the bigger, respected, (but still small)
gh3, and they will make a small percentage of what will mostly be spent on the construction.
Second: A hotel project here would be going ahead whether Rocco Maragna were attached to it or not, and whether or not he had "helped approve it" at earlier stages of the plan: the whole Board of Governors wants a hotel here. The Star article seems to intimate that this was all Joe Pantalone's scheming to get a friend a job, but the reality is that with the large conference and trade show venues on the ExPlace grounds, the complex badly needs a hotel with all of its attendant facilities onsite to make the entire complex more attractive to prospective exhibitors... and everyone running the joint knows it.
Third: Henry Kallan did not create a
company that runs 4 luxury boutique hotels in Manhattan by being a fool. He could have asked anyone to design a hotel for him here, and more specifically he could have let Maragna go if he weren't impressed with the design.
Fourth: If any Exhibition Place Board of Governors members were not happy with the situation, it could have come up at the public meeting that I attended where the project was approved. It did not appear that there was any dissension, nor did Joe Pantalone appear to be pulling anyone's strings. Several dozen members of the public were in attendance, and any concerns raised, were raised by the public, and were pertaining to entirely different aspects of the project.
I think The Star is attempting to manufacture a scandal here to sell a few papers, where there aren't quite enough ingredients to whip one up.
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