Toronto Ramsden Park Community Recreation Centre | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto

[christiesplits]

The City of Toronto is building a new community recreation centre at 1020 Yonge St., currently a Toronto Parking Authority lot across from Ramsden Park.

A new community recreation centre is coming to 1020 Yonge St., immediately west of Rosedale Subway Station in the Rosedale neighbourhood, near Yonge Street and Belmont Avenue. The facility will face Ramsden Park to the north and Budd Sugarman Park to the east, featuring an aquatics centre, gymnasium, running track and multi-use activity spaces.

• Spring 2025: Hire a design team
• Spring to Summer 2025: Community Engagement Phase 1
• Fall to Winter 2025: Community Engagement Phase 2
• Spring to Summer 2026: Community Engagement Phase 3
• Fall 2026 Detailed design
• Winter 2027: Hire a construction team
• Spring 2027: Construction starts
• Summer 2030: Construction complete, Community Recreation Centre opens to the public

The timeline is subject to change.

Ramsden Park Community Recreation Centre

A new community recreation centre is coming to 1020 Yonge St., immediately west of Rosedale Subway Station in the Rosedale neighbourhood, near Yonge Street and Belmont Avenue.

www.toronto.ca

Via Google.

 

[Northern Light]

Where does the City getting off announcing stuff that I told UT about more than a year ago? Pffft.

A distant second, I announced it, the City re-announced it. LOL

Here's the budget for it:

Of note, the budget above is from the Budget just passed in the last month, but it does not align timing wise with the new project page:

Whose fibbing, the bean counters or the project team?

In all seriousness, if 75M is being pulled forward for this, there's a good chance 75M of something else is being pushed back.

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Facility to include:

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Way too much consultation proposed......3 rounds of it, maybe even 4........not necessary, there isn't that much flex in the concept or the budget.

The consultation here will take close to 18 months will eat 7-figures ......

 

[christiesplits]

Way too much consultation proposed......3 rounds of it, maybe even 4........not necessary, there isn't that much flex in the concept or the budget.

The consultation here will take close to 18 months will eat 7-figures ......

Agreed. One round would be fine. Is this level of consultation common for rec centres? I know local Ramsden Park residents are very protecting.

Also, does PFR make a distinction between a "Recreation Centre" and "Community Recreation Centre?" Are they used interchangeably?

 

[Northern Light]

Agreed. One round would be fine. Is this level of consultation common for rec centres? I know local Ramsden Park residents are very protecting.

On the larger projects, yes. PF&R is among the chief patrons of the Consultant Enrichment scheme.

Also, does PFR make a distinction between a "Recreation Centre" and "Community Recreation Centre?" Are they used interchangeably?

Not really.

This is the way the Facilities Master Plan for Parks describes the distinctions:

You may, in the past have seen these read as:

Premier
Class A/B
Class C

 

[ADRM]

The consultation process proposed here is dumb, full stop. PF&R are among the worst offenders at the City in this respect: their processes produce unnecessarily long project timelines for no tangible benefit and considerable drawbacks, which are increasingly leading towards projects marred by both higher soft costs (paying public engagement consultants to run these drawn-out processes, and also requiring design consultants to produce too many schemes that the public has no real expertise to weigh in on) and higher hard costs (these consultations draw out the projects for months or years longer, and hard costs never really go down). Plus, obviously, the public has to wait longer to get the benefit of the new facility.

This will almost assuredly be a 2-storey community centre that costs too much, is fairly bland and uninspiring, designed by one of Perkins + Will, Diamond Schmitt, or (heaven forbid) CS&P, cost more than it should, and take longer than it should. One would think that should give folks at the City pause; alas...

 

[Northern Light]

The consultation process proposed here is dumb, full stop. PF&R are among the worst offenders at the City in this respect: their processes produce unnecessarily long project timelines for no tangible benefit and considerable drawbacks, which are increasingly leading towards projects marred by both higher soft costs (paying public engagement consultants to run these drawn-out processes, and also requiring design consultants to produce too many schemes that the public has no real expertise to weigh in on) and higher hard costs (these consultations draw out the projects for months or years longer, and hard costs never really go down). Plus, obviously, the public has to wait longer to get the benefit of the new facility.

Agreed.

This will almost assuredly be a 2-storey community centre that costs too much, is fairly bland and uninspiring, designed by one of Perkins + Will, Diamond Schmitt, or (heaven forbid) CS&P, cost more than it should, and take longer than it should. One would think that should give folks at the City pause; alas...

Agreed with the asterisk that I think this will be 3 storeys. But not sure.

 

[Midtown Hank]

A community rec centre in this locations sounds great to me. I think community consultation is very important and not sure if only one round would suffice.

The $75million budget/cost sounds about right, but if someone could explain to me the difference between a city run centre Vs. something like a YMCA or YWCA. My concern with centres like these are the ongoing financial burden of maintaining them. It seems to me that it would be cheaper to subsidize Y memberships for lower income individual/households that live in proximity.

 

[Northern Light]

A community rec centre in this locations sounds great to me. I think community consultation is very important and not sure if only one round would suffice.

What change to scope or architecture do you imagine that would require, not one, not two, but four rounds of consulation?

The $75million budget/cost sounds about right

You read that wrong........its 128M (125 for construction, 3M for design)

, but if someone could explain to me the difference between a city run centre Vs. something like a YMCA or YWCA.

Lots of differences, ownership is the most obvious.......there are also far more City facilities

(123 to 3 for full service facilities), 123 vs 6 for limited scope sites.

, and by and large, even their general pricing is cheaper than the YMCA; but the City also runs about 40 facilities with nearly 100% free programming, and most non-private/non-semi private programs aimed at children/youth are completely free as well.

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Worth noting that if you look at most new YMCA's government is generally a prominent source of funding.

 

[AlexBozikovic]

Among many other issues here: $3-million on a $125-million project is a design fee of 2.4%. That is absurdly, exploitatively low.

It’s an invitation to bad design and bad construction documents, mistakes and lawsuits.

 

[christiesplits]

Among many other issues here: $3-million on a $125-million project is a design fee of 2.4%. That is absurdly, exploitatively low.

It’s an invitation to bad design and bad construction documents, mistakes and lawsuits.

Alex also makes a good point on Twitter. Given the prime location, shouldn't housing be built on top?

 

[AlbertC]

The consultation process proposed here is dumb, full stop. PF&R are among the worst offenders at the City in this respect: their processes produce unnecessarily long project timelines for no tangible benefit and considerable drawbacks, which are increasingly leading towards projects marred by both higher soft costs (paying public engagement consultants to run these drawn-out processes, and also requiring design consultants to produce too many schemes that the public has no real expertise to weigh in on) and higher hard costs (these consultations draw out the projects for months or years longer, and hard costs never really go down). Plus, obviously, the public has to wait longer to get the benefit of the new facility.

This will almost assuredly be a 2-storey community centre that costs too much, is fairly bland and uninspiring, designed by one of Perkins + Will, Diamond Schmitt, or (heaven forbid) CS&P, cost more than it should, and take longer than it should. One would think that should give folks at the City pause; alas...

Don't forget the visionaries at Snyder! Community rec centre with highrise housing, retail and other public amenity space above, being directly on primo Yonge Street real estate and across from a universally underused subway station would've been obvious but common sense isn't always common nowadays

 

[Midtown Hank]

What change to scope or architecture do you imagine that would require, not one, not two, but four rounds of consulation?

Not everyone who wants to participate can make a single date/time so at minimum I think 2 would be in order. Also think the feedback from the community/primary users should have a major say in what goes in the building (like a pool, or 2 basketball courts, or 3 yoga/dance type studios). More input from the community should be welcomed and having more community consultation meeting should yield more input.

You read that wrong........its 128M (125 for construction, 3M for design)

Thanks for correcting.

On the subject of building on top, I think any shadowing on Ramsden Park would be a very bad idea. It is a gem of an urban park.

 

[Northern Light]

Among many other issues here: $3-million on a $125-million project is a design fee of 2.4%. That is absurdly, exploitatively low.

It’s an invitation to bad design and bad construction documents, mistakes and lawsuits.

I agree, though, I'm uncertain, I believe the constructions drawings may be funded out of the construction budget.

I'm not sure how that would then work in terms of percentage.

I would note, this project has not been tendered, so any amount is really a place holder at this stage.

 

[Northern Light]

, being directly on primo Yonge Street real estate and across from a universally underused subway station would've been obvious but common sense isn't always common nowadays

Is it common sense Albert?

This site is immediately south of Ramsden Park, the signature green space for the area. Putting it in perpetual shadow would obviously contradict City policy, and I would argue not such a great idea.

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There's another issue, there's a midrise office building to the immediate south of this site, which is an obvious candidate for hirise residential. If that were proposed, you require 20M separation, for a variety of reasons, that would fall disproportionately to the City site and that would likely leave you a non-viable floorplate (shy of 20M, on the N-S axis)

 

[rbt]

Where does the City getting off announcing stuff that I told UT about more than a year ago? Pffft.

City manager needs to assign staff to read UT, create a report on what they read, have council accept the report, send the report to committee, committee makes modifications, then back to council, then they can announce the stuff UT announced; but it takes more than a year to go through that process.