Toronto Pinnacle One Yonge | 344.9m | 105s | Pinnacle | Hariri Pontarini

It really annoys me when someone calls a certain project 'crap' because their personal opinion does not align with a particular project. There are 2000+ units and more than 5000 people that call the Pinnacle Centre home. Our demographics are well balanced. The rental levels are low as most owners call this home. I've lived here since day one, the building is very well managed. There has never been a crisis of glass falling from the buildings, there has never been a major problem with the complex, our maintenance fees have increased a total of 17 cents since we moved into one of the buildings, There is a lot of revenue created from the podium shops and particularly the 1000 or so public parking spots used by SBA fans, which help to finance the maintenance of buildings. You may not like the colour of the glass or the cul de sac entry private/public park area, which by the way required by the city, but at least have some respect for other people and keep your options to yourself.

You can live there and like it, I probably would, but that doesn't mean it's not a crappy building from a design and public realm perspective. Those apparently lucrative shops are terribly designed and not productive at all for retail spaces, the public realm around the building is completely out of scale of the pedestrian and while that forecourt may have been required by the city, it doesn't make it any better. All in one of the most prime locations in the city. The urbanism of the complex is a blight on the city, no matter how well managed it may be. The architecture is safe at best, teetering on ugly on top of all that.

This is coming from someone who lives in an even uglier building than what your complex is.
 
It really annoys me when someone calls a certain project 'crap' because their personal opinion does not align with a particular project. There are 2000+ units and more than 5000 people that call the Pinnacle Centre home. Our demographics are well balanced. The rental levels are low as most owners call this home. I've lived here since day one, the building is very well managed. There has never been a crisis of glass falling from the buildings, there has never been a major problem with the complex, our maintenance fees have increased a total of 17 cents since we moved into one of the buildings, There is a lot of revenue created from the podium shops and particularly the 1000 or so public parking spots used by SBA fans, which help to finance the maintenance of buildings. You may not like the colour of the glass or the cul de sac entry private/public park area, which by the way required by the city, but at least have some respect for other people and keep your options to yourself.

But surely it’s possible to criticize a building’s architecture or a developer’s efforts, while acknowledging it has broader social functions.

“Crap” is unnecessarily invective, but I wouldn’t have taken it from that post that 3Dementia believes the area would have been better served had it remained surface parking lots.
 
Fri May 3

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Michael 62:
I shouldn't take the bait but... the folks who know me here know I am way too far on the Toronto "fanboy" side of discussions, rather than being a cynic.. quite the contrary (my bad jokes don't land but hey...tough audience).

The "crap" comment about Pinnacle Centre honestly came from 2 places:

1. despite the major challenges of the "island" site that Pinnacle Centre was built on, I didn't see any attempt to bring some imagination/differention to a then major development... I don't mean stuff for purchasers (which they may have done well), but stuff for the city and I'm happy if purchasers are happy but the wall of copy/paste buildings, cladding etc. and not one good idea to connect this (challenging) site to the city left me disappointed to say the least.

2. Pinnacle built a (IMO) lousy first Toronto building on Bloor Street.

So my "crap" comment comes from more than a bit of worry (expert at that). Haven't seen anything very good from them and, as mention in my post, even with HP involved and all the wonderful renders... this rather "transformative" mega-project at one Yonge is in the hands of developers that haven't impressed IMO.

But as I mentioned, clues re: execution (execution?) of design will be forthcoming with the first building.
 
Can you provide a link for those? Would love to see them in higher res (also you have to cite the source image anyways per forum rules).
 

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