Toronto Ripley's Aquarium of Canada | 13.11m | 2s | Ripley Entertainment | B+H

Atlanta's Georgia Aquarium is outstanding though I'm sure the fish have more fun staring at the Red State trailer trash than the other way around.

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True, but this is Toronto. A quality exterior with quality exhibits would have been nice.
 
Ramako said:
At only 2,000 sq m (1/7 the size of Toronto's proposed aquarium) there won't be much room for actual displays. As far as aquariums go, I'm far more concerned with what's on the inside. Let's hope that the inside is where they spend their money.
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What a Rob Ford thing to say! I would expect something like that from the Toronto Sun's readers comments but for somebody on Urban Toronto, you'd think that architecture, urban planning and building great cities would be of some importance. It's all important, the inside and the outside.
 
What a great posting Torontovibe! I've spent a fair amount of time defending Ford because I really bristle at easy choices that are based on facile judgments but you've kind of hit the nail on the head here. We do expect more! Toronto isn't some podunk town that merits this half-assed Aquarium scheme, and aren't we all a little tired of settling for the second best attitude that plagues us yet? Toronto is an alpha city that deserves better, if I can put it in such a pedestrian way, and when will people really and truly get it?! As for a mayoral candidate I'd love to see an honest, shoot-from-the-hip kind of leader who understands this and who will make this happen, or create an environment that makes this happen, but there just doesn't seem to be one, as far as I can tell. One day, perhaps!
 
City council yesterday approved the Final Report regarding the aquarium application; the applicant now has the planning permission to proceed (notwithstanding final site plan/design approval).
 
egotrippin said:
I like the idea of a smaller Ontario marine based aquarium by the CN Tower, leaving the possibility for a waterfront landmark aquarium open.

If we only get one though, I say go big or go home.
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Are you serious??? - If we only get one???? How many Aquariums to you think we will get?? TWO??? Please give yourself a shake and wake up. There is only room for ONE aquarium in Toronto. Tokyo is a city in excess if 13 million people. Why on earth should we allow a second rate aquarium to take the only opportunity this city may ever have? This whole project is a joke but is very much in keeping with the small minded Canadian self esteem - "oh wow an American company is going to build an aquarium here, aren't we lucky?"
 
Big Daddy said:
Are you serious??? - If we only get one???? How many Aquariums to you think we will get?? TWO??? Please give yourself a shake and wake up. There is only room for ONE aquarium in Toronto. Tokyo is a city in excess if 13 million people. Why on earth should we allow a second rate aquarium to take the only opportunity this city may ever have? This whole project is a joke but is very much in keeping with the small minded Canadian self esteem - "oh wow an American company is going to build an aquarium here, aren't we lucky?"
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My thoughts exactly. Just as a city only gets to build one Opera House, a city only gets to build one Aquarium. We missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build something special with the Opera House and ended up with an architectural dud :mad:. It looks like we are about to make the same mistake again with this second rate Aquarium. The small parcel of land at the foot of the CN Tower where it is proposed to go means that they will not have the option of expanding the Aquarium. It will always be second rate.

An OBVIOUS choice would be to locate the Aquarium at the waters edge on the east side of Ontario Place which is currently occupied with a parking lot.

With a revamp of Ontario Place in the works (hopefully retaining the iconic pods and cinesphere) perhaps its not to late reconsider this proposal.
 
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Honestly, what the heck is this obsession with building the aquarium on the water ... you realize how silly in principle that is, it makes more sense to build it somewhere away from water, a desert maybe? People going to the water's edge can walk beside it / play beside it / play on it / travel on it to the island, not going into an enclosed facility wherthe they can pretend to be in it. Now if the tunnel to the island has see through glass, that would be something :)

It's not about size either, they could have / can still (maybe) build up in the location they chose as well. Thirdly, once both phases complete it'll still be a fairly large aquairum - probably about the same size / a bit larger then in Vancouver (after their expansion) and larger then most in North America less a the top 3 or 4. Again expansion is always possible. We should be much more concerned about quality here - which to be honest, I'm not highly optimistic of, but that's another story - I think we'll end up with an OK aquarium, nothing amazing, a couple nice touches here and there ...
 
Quality will definitely count, and while I don't know what the quality of the existing Ripley's aquariums are, I do know what the quality of Ripley's Believe It Or Not is like in Niagara Falls, so I am somewhat suspicious...

but Quantity will be a factor here. We may open in 8th place in North America, and could expand in the future to 7th place, but we will be much, much smaller than the aquariums that matter. Look at those numbers again Taal; they're not too encouraging.

1. Atlanta = 550,000 sq. ft.
2. Chicago = 422,000 sq. ft.
3. Monterey Bay = 322,000 sq. ft
4. Baltimore = 273,500 sq. ft.
5. Tampa Bay = 250,000 sq. ft.
6. Long Beach = 157,000 sq. ft.
*. Toronto Phase Two (Ripley's) = 150,000 sq. ft.
7. Gatlinburg (Ripley's) = 115,000 sq. ft.
8. Toronto Phase One (Ripley's) = 101,000 sq. ft.
9. Vancouver = 100,000 sq. ft.
10. Myrtle Beach (Ripley's) = 85,000 sq. ft.

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interchange42 said:
Quality will definitely count, and while I don't know what the quality of the existing Ripley's aquariums are, I do know what the quality of Ripley's Believe It Or Not is like in Niagara Falls, so I am somewhat suspicious...

but Quantity will be a factor here. We may open in 8th place in North America, and could expand in the future to 7th place, but we will be much, much smaller than the aquariums that matter. Look at those numbers again Taal; they're not too encouraging.

1. Atlanta = 550,000 sq. ft.
2. Chicago = 422,000 sq. ft.
3. Monterey Bay = 322,000 sq. ft
4. Baltimore = 273,500 sq. ft.
5. Tampa Bay = 250,000 sq. ft.
6. Long Beach = 157,000 sq. ft.
*. Toronto Phase Two (Ripley's) = 150,000 sq. ft.
7. Gatlinburg (Ripley's) = 115,000 sq. ft.
8. Toronto Phase One (Ripley's) = 101,000 sq. ft.
9. Vancouver = 100,000 sq. ft.
10. Myrtle Beach (Ripley's) = 85,000 sq. ft.

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Again, I don't see why they couldn't expand even further if the economics permit down the road - I also really doubt those other aquariums started at the numbers cited above, they probably underwent expansions as well.

I'm much more concerned about and I do think there will be issues there.
 
After Phase 2, Toronto's aquarium won't have much ability to expand, unless it's up... or down into some kind of cave. The amount of land here is tiny on comparison with what others in the list above sit on.

The huge Georgia Aquarium, which likely does not need to expand, could, into lawns east of it. Georgia was built in one go.

Chicago's Shedd Aquarium has expanded numerous times... on its wide open site on Lake Michigan. (Why you see no advantage in a lakeside site baffles me, despite your explanation. A site on the water suggests fish like nothing else!)

Monterey Bay likely started out the size of Toronto's planned phase two, and has expanded along the shore into spaces that were disused sardine canneries. Overfishing closed the canneries, and ironically opened up space to celebrate fish.

Baltimore's National Aquarium sits on its Inner Harbor, another post-industrial area, and it has been able to expand over the years too. Space there was made available as ships got bigger and needed larger and deeper waters...

We could have put ours in the Harbour, or at Ontario Place. Even the Humber Bay Parks at the foot of Park Lawn was an intended site at one point. Any of those strike me as more appropriate, and more expandable than what we are going to get. There was no money for the other plans though, so now that Ripley's is bringing cash to the table, they call the shots.

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Sorry, I really still don't see the appeal of putting an aquarium on the water, it baffles me, I can't even see why you'd want to :) My point of view is you already have a giant lake / ocean / what not, right there - put facilities that make use of that directly, an aquarium does not - I mean, it's like arguing a car museum should go on a hi-way :D ... although maybe it should.
Most cities have large expansive waterfronts, so my argument is not that it shouldn't go on the waterfront if there's land there - I'm not in love with our semi-used green space in west Toronto around the lake - but on the central waterfront I think we can think of better uses.

If it's merely for room to expand that's a completely different issue - at the same rate I'd argue the portlands / downview park (less it's non central location) are just as good.

You guys are way to concerned about size ... it's already 2 floors, I'm sure it can expand up - I'm very much concerned on quality.
 
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