Toronto Mirvish Village (Honest Ed's Redevelopment) | 85.04m | 26s | Westbank | Henriquez Partners

I think the downtown area between Church to McCaul, and Davenport to Queens Quay is spread over multiple blocks.

not in a continuous manner which provide shoppers a pleasant experience. Retail on Church is only near the Village, and south of Carlton it is quiet dead. Like mentioned, Church/Dundas looks completely embarrassing. Queen East has some inconsistent retail, plus a huge empty parking lot at Church. Bay st pretty much has no retail to speak of, University has no retail to speak of. Elizabeth has no retail to speak of. College/Wellesley and all the side streets up to Bloor all have little retail. For Christ' sake, even Edward st steps from Yonge/Dundas offers little. Victoria st? Nothing. Gerrard? Nil.

Downtown is far from having multiple blocks of continuous retail. The linear pattern and dependence on a few main drag is quite obvious.
 
By retail, I guess you mean destination type retail typical of a shopping mall. There's a broader definition that includes the services offered on Bay or the independent designer with small studio space off the beaten track.
 
By retail, I guess you mean destination type retail typical of a shopping mall. There's a broader definition that includes the services offered on Bay or the independent designer with small studio space off the beaten track.

which those streets don't have.
Mall? Who mentioned malls? What service offered on Bay? Calling those dry clean and shoppers retail is disgraceful.
 
which those streets don't have.
Mall? Who mentioned malls? What service offered on Bay? Calling those dry clean and shoppers retail is disgraceful.

People need that retail. If you're a professional, the odds that you need dry cleaning are quite good. Yonge Street will always be better for "destination retail" because of the subway and the Eaton Centre retail node; Bay Street between Queen and Bloor should be more about "neighbourhood retail" that people need in their everyday lives. Thousands of people live along Bay Street who need food and certain services like banking and dry cleaning.
 
People need that retail. If you're a professional, the odds that you need dry cleaning are quite good. Yonge Street will always be better for "destination retail" because of the subway and the Eaton Centre retail node; Bay Street between Queen and Bloor should be more about "neighbourhood retail" that people need in their everyday lives. Thousands of people live along Bay Street who need food and certain services like banking and dry cleaning.

Yes, people do need those things and I have no objections to them. What I meant is Bay st should provide a lot more than those. It is unbearably boring. Take Paris for example, most of its streets are mixed used as well and the ground floor retail didn't end up being all banks and dry cleaners. What about some delicious pastry shops? What about some ramen restaurants? What about small bookstores or butcher's shop? Bay is a prominent street in the centre of the city. Your standard is way too low.

see, these streets are residential too but are not boring.

Paris-street-of-small-stores.jpg
 
In Toronto those buildings would cast too much of a shadow on that street and the people living above would complain about the retail below.

Seriously, though, I really wish we had more streets where the built form came right up to the sidewalk like that and had consistent, narrow retail. So beautiful and walkable.
 
In Toronto those buildings would cast too much of a shadow on that street and the people living above would complain about the retail below.

Seriously, though, I really wish we had more streets where the built form came right up to the sidewalk like that and had consistent, narrow retail. So beautiful and walkable.

Consistency is the one thing Toronto doesn't have. Even Queen West and prime Yonge have so many gaps, along with many weird one story slabs between.

I love Paris, but I don't know if I would call that walkable. Any amount of crowding and someone is on the road.

If that is not walkable, I don't what is. Streets in Toronto, even downtown, tends to be too wide. Jarvis and Spadina etc look ridiculous with those multiple lanes and short buildings, where it is natural for cars to dominate. On the other hand, our narrow side streets are usually dead with zero retail or anything interesting, just other people's residence.

You concern about someone on the road is legitimate, however, those are small side streets where large crowds are not expected, and because the streets are narrow, cars are unlikely to move fast. Actually one of the greatest enjoyment about visiting Paris is walking aimlessly on those small streets. I never felt unsafe or threatened by cars.
 
OT but neither do I when I'm there. That said, are we saying wide sidewalks are a negative? I don't understand that point. Or maybe we're saying small sidewalks are ok for small streets, but large sidewalks should be on major roads? That I can agree with, as I think Yonge street's sidewalks are way to small (read thin) for example, while I think Bloor has some proper width on its sidewalks.
 
I love when people choose a picture of one neighbourhood in a large city like Paris and cast aspersions about the entire city based on it. That image is not Paris in a nutshell; it's just one area within the city. I can assure you that most of Paris does not look like that; the touristy areas, however, do look like that.
 
That's one thing I dislike about retail in this city; it's basically restricted to linear, aterterial roads exclusively, rather than blocks of it in every direction. As soon as you step off the main roads, you're basically met with quiet residential neighbourhoods.
I think that has a lot to do with the PATH. A lot of retail is pushed underground that would normally be at street level in other cities.
 
I love when people choose a picture of one neighbourhood in a large city like Paris and cast aspersions about the entire city based on it. That image is not Paris in a nutshell; it's just one area within the city. I can assure you that most of Paris does not look like that; the touristy areas, however, do look like that.

central Paris largely looks like that, not exactly like but the point being nodal retail on most side streets, not just a few main drags. That's what is discussed here. I used to stay at the 13th district, nothing too touristy but all the small retail along the mixed used streets impressed me immensely.
 

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