Toronto Rees Park Playground and Pavillion | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

P23 said:
I agree with others saying a park is not really necessary here. Personally I see it as a great location for a real public square, the kind we don't have in the city yet, lined with restaurants and pubs with large patios and spaces for food trucks or farmers market stalls. I think this is a prime location for such a square due to its proximity to so many major attractions like the Skydome, CN Tower and the Lake, there's also a lack of higher quality food/drink establishments nearby. Maybe stick a skating rink and a beavertail shack in there for the winter to keep things lively.
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Is this not the purpose of, and duplicative of, the Harbourfront Centre and that entire quay?

I have to disagree. I see large and contiguous spaces of vegetation to be a scarcity along the waterfront, and I guess I don't see the rationale for more impervious surfaces on the edge of the water, on top of the concrete jungle that is downtown and Queens Quay.
 
Torontovibe said:
If this is just another grass & trees park, I can't see this being very popular, when you have parks right on the lake, just across the street. All you need to do is take a short walk over to Sherbourne Park to see how popular the north and south parts of that park are. I almost never see anyone in the park on the north side of Queens Quay and that's because they are all on the south side, beside the lake. Just because you throw down some grass & trees, it doesn't mean people will come. Take a look at June Collwood Park, which has been open a few years and is still empty even on warn summer days. That might be because there is a very nice park just across the road, on the lake.

People are naturally drawn to the waterfront and if given the choice of two parks beside the water or across the street, they always choose the park located on the lake. If this park is going to be successful at all, it has to have something major, to draw people in and away from the water. Grass and trees with a few benches, just will not cut it. I think this area needs buildings to make it a year-round destination and NO, I do not mean condos! At least in the north part of the park, I would like to see a public amenity or a cultural building blocking out the Gardiner. A new tourist attraction would also help the area become more animated and lively.
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The Sherbourne comparison is not a fair one, in that the site is, for the moment, quite isolated, and that park is intended as a fairly passive space, the active one being to the south.

June Callwood Park or the Rosenberg designed HTO park spaces aren't good comparisons either, in that they are somewhere between terrible design and dumbfoundingly awful.

That's not to say I oppose including different elements that 'trees and grass'; but I can't say a new building would be in my wish list either.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
Is this not the purpose of, and duplicative of, the Harbourfront Centre and that entire quay?

I have to disagree. I see large and contiguous spaces of vegetation to be a scarcity along the waterfront, and I guess I don't see the rationale for more impervious surfaces on the edge of the water, on top of the concrete jungle that is downtown and Queens Quay.
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Harbourfront Centre is nice, but not quite what I'm talking about. It only has a few scattered restaurants and cafes which aren't that great, Ontario and Canada squares are usually deserted.

The entire Quay area is lacking in good quality food/drink establishments. If you line the square with them and some large patio spaces, put the baseball game on some big screens (great atmosphere near the dome) and provide lots of seating for people just grabbing a bite and I guarantee the place will be a bustling destination.

Also if you want greenspace there is Roundhouse Park, Canoe Landing and Coronation Park/Garrison Common close by, they have quite a bit of unprogrammed space and aren't usually that busy (unrealized potential IMO). The area this property covers is rather small for a green park, it would probably turn out like HTO across the street, mostly empty since there is no reason to go there. Just my thoughts.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
Is this not the purpose of, and duplicative of, the Harbourfront Centre and that entire quay?

I have to disagree. I see large and contiguous spaces of vegetation to be a scarcity along the waterfront, and I guess I don't see the rationale for more impervious surfaces on the edge of the water, on top of the concrete jungle that is downtown and Queens Quay.
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I pretty much agree, what can be put there that harbourfront and environs a few mins walk away doesn't, or couldn't, offer..? HTO across the street is not much of a greenspace at all with little opportunity to sit and relax. I also think a lot of the users of the new park will be people living in the condos on either side. I like the idea of some kind of amenity or unique aesthetic feature to give it more draw but I would prefer it to be predominantly greenspace.
 
Rode my bike down there to take a few photos of the area today (below). I really don't see a strong rationale for a park here. HTO east and west are green, on the water, offer lots of places to sit, have nice trees, and are across the street. It makes more sense to build on this site, and perhaps require 20 meters linear piazza in the front featuring patios and places to sit. The Gardiner is rather unsightly and loud here, so isn't ideal for a park. One of the nice (unexpected) results of development along the Gardiner is that it effectively disappears when buildings straddle both sides. The city probably could have made $50M from this site, and used the funds for something else more needed, like a solution to the Billy Bishop parking/drop-off and Silo preservation.
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Not only do you have H2O East & West but right beside that you have the Music Garden and 1 minute from that you have Ireland Park and then Little Norway Park and 2 minutes from there, continuous parkland all along the waterfront. To say Toronto's waterfront doesn't have enough green space just leads me to believe you don't go there and don't get me started on the east side, which also has miles and miles of parkland/green space!

I don't understand why people just want more of what we already have in abundance when most of it, goes under-used. Most of the time, those parks are not even close to being crowded like Trinity Bellwoods Park gets on some days. You will never see crowds in Coronation Park or Little Norway Park or Marilyn Bell Park unless it's Caribana time. Do you ever see anybody in H2O Park West on a regular day/night? It is almost always empty! It's the east side with the fake beach that gets all the crowds.
 
Torontovibe said:
Do you ever see anybody in H2O Park West on a regular day/night? It is almost always empty!
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I think it's strange that you've accused someone of never having actually visited the place they're criticizing, given what you say about HtO, as literally every time I've been there since moving to Toronto it's been rammed with people and impossible to find a seat anywhere.

That said, count me a little skeptical of the reasoning behind reserving 100% of the above-grade space on this site for a park.
 
Torontovibe said:
Not only do you have H2O East & West but right beside that you have the Music Garden and 1 minute from that you have Ireland Park and then Little Norway Park and 2 minutes from there, continuous parkland all along the waterfront. To say Toronto's waterfront doesn't have enough green space just leads me to believe you don't go there and don't get me started on the east side, which also has miles and miles of parkland/green space!
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Oh I've been there, over and over again. I'm taken aback by this notion that somehow, we don't deserve more. We are from the Hominidae family, we came down from the trees, and we shouldn't have to live in an urban area with a marginal amount of green space, especially with the additional side benefits to the urban fabric (shade, air filtration, on-site water control, etc).
 
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