Toronto’s One Yonge development would add curves to its linear lakeside neighbourhood
Though not yet approved, the One Yonge Street project, at Queen’s Quay, is expected to include a mix of residential, hotel, commercial and green space.
Thankfully, developer Pinnacle International, which already has a presence in the neighbourhood, seems interested in glamming up the dated old corner. The Toronto Star building will remain, but will have some new storeys added on top. Around it and the proposed new towers will grow some green space and user-friendly open spaces.
Currently, the submission to the City of Toronto calls for six new buildings, with one reaching 88 storeys (a change from the original five buildings, with one reaching 98 storeys). Pinnacle plans two storeys of retail in a podium-like structure at the base of the hotel building. These Hariri Pontarini renderings show an elegant new swooping glass canopy protecting the main access point from the winds and weather of the lakefront; practicality aside, it would be a welcome addition to the straight lines of the streetscape in the vicinity. Only the egg-beater sculpture across the street offers any visual relief from the hard-edged concrete and glass of neighbouring structures.
Aside from current residents and office workers, surely tourists to the area will appreciate something prettier to look at than the embattled Captain John’s surf-and-turf ship and the near-Brutalist Star building with its utilitarian service wing. (The rendering above looks like they may be planning to just wrap that wing in a smarter, airier skin.)
Of interest is the introduction of a Euro-style street form called a woonerf, which is a street made for both people and cars, but on which the cars must travel no faster than human speed and where pedestrians have the priority. We’ll first see theme at the Pan Am Athletes Village in the West Don Lands, but there’s also been talk of them for the John Street Avenue and Bloor West stretches. So it seems, if the submission passes muster, that the foot of Yonge might develop a life of its own beyond being the gateway to Harbourfront and the Air Canada Centre.
http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/0...-curves-to-its-linear-lakeside-neighbourhood/