Toronto Lower Simcoe Ramp | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto

[DonValleyRainbow]

I think keeping the bents provides more potential opportunities than it squanders.

 

[georgevicbell]

From the looks of the last photos, at least 2 piers are going to remain as well a few others for the York Ramp.

Yay! Another monument to being able to build stuff with concrete...only in Toronto would this be worth keeping, instead of some art or a real park...it's honestly like the bridge by the Hoover dam that was built a couple years ago...right in the middle of it is a bronzed Gantt chart...a tribute to being able to stay on schedule....

Good work everyone...

 

[Razz]

Remarkable progress was made on on the spiral portion of the ramp today.

Taken Thursday, June 1, 2017:

9:00 AM


12:00 PM




1:45 PM


3:30 PM


7:00 PM










Oh, and by the way, the Harbour Street section of the ramp is now officially a memory..




p.s. My apologies for the huge photo dumps, but the fast pace of this demo project has been incredible and I can barely keep up with daily changes. Consider that they started on this project less than 6 weeks ago, and now the entire stretch of the York/Bay ramp is completely down, save for one half of the spiral portion which should disappear by the middle of next week.

 

[hawc]

Is anyone amazed at the pace of this demolition?

 

[TransitBart]

?..but it definitely won't be soul-sucking as it was before.

While there is nothing about Harbour Street that gives me the warm fuzzies, I wonder if anyone here has seen downtown Dallas or Atlanta. That is soul-sucking. Street level parking garages. Liquor stores with bars attended by guys with guns. Cars roaring by at 60 miles an hour and windowless high-rise convention centres. And not a soul to see if you are shot, raped or run over should any of those eventualities come to pass.

Toronto has nothing which compares.

 

[kotsy]

p.s. My apologies for the huge photo dumps

this is the point of the forums

 

[salsa]

While there is nothing about Harbour Street that gives me the warm fuzzies, I wonder if anyone here has seen downtown Dallas or Atlanta.

Been to downtown Atlanta, which I wrote about a while ago: http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...ed-to-other-cities.20287/page-22#post-1028632

Absolutely terrible city.

 

[TransitBart]

Been to downtown Atlanta.

Absolutely terrible city.

Yep. That about sums it up.

 

[jje1000]

Been to downtown Atlanta, which I wrote about a while ago: http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...ed-to-other-cities.20287/page-22#post-1028632

Absolutely terrible city.

At a first glance I thought that Westin was our Westin hotel. Hope ours gets redone soon.

Toronto doesn't have the awful urban planning that completely envelopes most American downtowns, but the 70s-90s era parts of the Central Waterfront do get some of that feeling since they were designed to be bunkers insulating the inside from the outside (understandably bleak at the time).

 

[rbt]

At a first glance I thought that Westin was our Westin hotel. Hope ours gets redone soon.

It might. The group that bought it in 2013 listed it for sale in 2016 (probably sold by now; don't know). The hotel has good occupancy rates, so I doubt they'll tear down any of the main structure but underused conference center structure to the north is ripe for redevelopment.

 

[Edward Skira]

Is anyone amazed at the pace of this demolition?

No. Easy to tear something like this down.

 

[DSC]

It might. The group that bought it in 2013 listed it for sale in 2016 (probably sold by now; don't know). The hotel has good occupancy rates, so I doubt they'll tear down any of the main structure but underused conference center structure to the north is ripe for redevelopment.

Though I agree the Conference Centre building is ripe for redevelopment I gather that having an attached conference centre is essential to the occupancy rates for the hotel. If the current low-rise is torn down I bet any replacement will have a similar centre as part of it.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Though I agree the Conference Centre building is ripe for redevelopment I gather that having an attached conference centre is essential to the occupancy rates for the hotel. If the current low-rise is torn down I bet any replacement will have a similar centre as part of it.

The issue is more the design of the conference centre and not the notion of having one anyways.

AoD

 

[someMidTowner]

Saw this on Reddit:

 

[jje1000]

Though I agree the Conference Centre building is ripe for redevelopment I gather that having an attached conference centre is essential to the occupancy rates for the hotel. If the current low-rise is torn down I bet any replacement will have a similar centre as part of it.

I think another huge element that needs rework is the Harbour Square retail frontage. The parking garage and the buildings are there to stay, but the ground floor is absolutely bleak.