Toronto MEC Queen Street (Mountain Equipment Coop) | 21.03m | 3s | Parallax | Sweeny &Co

raptor said:
Can we stop blaming staff? There is no mechanism for city staff to enforce design excellence. Please educate yourself first before going after the city staff, who are doing their job.
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Absolutely wrong. See Planning Act 41(4)(2)(d) which specifically establishes that the site plan control process requires applicants to obtain approval from the municipality for (among other things):

...matters relating to exterior design, including without limitation the character, scale, appearance and design features of buildings, and their sustainable design...
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RonThom said:
Absolutely wrong. See Planning Act 41(4)(2)(d) which specifically establishes that the site plan control process requires applicants to obtain approval from the municipality for (among other things):
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Ok, so who should judge whether a design is 'aesthetic' or appropriate? "Art is in the eye of the beholder"
 
raptor said:
You had a pretty good idea of what is coming here for year, and you've decided to go to war now that it's pretty much complete? What do you hope to achieve with your public shaming? It's not as if they will agree with you and demolish it. So you don't agree with the aesthetics? I'm sure lots of people do, so you can't please everyone.
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There's also a large discrepency in what was promised and what we got. It was supposed to look something like this. Not amazing, but acceptable at least.
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RonThom said:
It is a fair point that the time to express outrage was during the approvals process. Was this a rezoning or SPA only?

I was just defending City staff in another thread, but honestly this is a travesty and I am disappointed staff didn't do a better job of forcing a better design here. Especially as they have considerable teeth of the HCD to do so.
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Frankly, this has turned out worse than what was in the render. It’s not so much the size of the store, more about the way it isolates itself inward, turning its back on the neighbourhood. And on Queen Street of all places, notorious for its walkable, small scale sidewalk retail.

Making noise about this now can force a course correction, even at this late stage. Sure, the interior layout might require windowless walls on Soho, but that doesn’t mean Soho needs to be a blank monolithic wall. A timber awning that houses community services like food, vendors, and a bike repair station could animate that side of the street while softening the appearance of the blank wall. Awnings above the Queen Street windows could visually break up the size of the building and bring it more inline with Queen Street’s aesthetic.

Making noise now will (has already) insure that MEC knows it’s held accountable to the neighbourhood. They’ve already responded positively to the criticism, backtracking their early PR statements that excused the building’s outward appearance by bragging about its interior and green credentials. They’ve already committed to opening up the windows, rather than use them as vinyl ad frames.
 
Ouch, that store looks even worse than what we're getting. I didnt think they could think much lower, but yet here we are.

But at least they are making some use out of wood.
 
Amare said:
Ouch, that store looks even worse than what we're getting. I didnt think they could think much lower, but yet here we are.

But at least they are making some use out of wood.
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Actually, it looks fine in person. The location is also very different from Toronto: Queen Street is a busy pedestrian street, 2nd Avenue is an arterial with very little pedestrian traffic. The new Vancouver MEC store will also bring significant improvements to the pedestrian realm including widened sidewalks and a bike lane. Here's an update from Skyrise Cities from last week https://vancouver.skyrisecities.com/news/2019/02/mec-flagship-store-taking-shape-e-2nd-ave

Proscenium Architecture designed the Vancouver store and has also designed MEC's head office; a very handsome building http://www.proscenium.ca/work/mec-head-office/
 
Amare said:
Ouch, that store looks even worse than what we're getting. I didnt think they could think much lower, but yet here we are.

But at least they are making some use out of wood.
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It looks not that bad actually. The use of wood in Vancouver is nice, maybe they like wood more then we do?
 
Good to know that the Vancouver location looks better than the renderings, it's just too bad the same cant be said for Toronto's flagship.
 
Doesn't this show that you shouldn't partner with your architect -- or, if you do, ensure the deal is structured to motivate delivery of a high quality building? I bet there was something in the structure of this deal that motivated Sweeny to build this building as cheaply as possible. Maybe even unintentional on the part of MEC but Sweeny is a business person first and architect second (obviously, lol) and he would have seen an opportunity to keep some money in his pocket by building a cheaper building. And the rent for the store was probably set in advance. That's my guess.
 
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