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

jn_12 said:
Well it's easy to say that you feel it is a schlocky design because you're in disagreement about the proposal. If I said it was the greaterst design I've ever seen, my opinion would be worth as much as yours.
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I say it is a schlocky design after seeing the pictures. Only my opinion, true, obviously.


jn_12 said:
And I think you are wrong. The location was available and enticing and I already explained what I think Ripley's approach will be.
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Of course the location is enticing, I get that, but it's a little easy in a 'tower gets lots of people so aquarium will' way, and sort of underscores for me that the business decision is trumping all others in locating it here (which I don't really blame Ripley's for one bit, by the way).


jn_12 said:
Actually, Upper Canada Village doesn't get a million people. If you read page 2 it says that the entire Commission gets 1million people and it includes: Upper Canada Village, 12 major day-use beach sites and campgrounds, Fort Henry National Historic Site of Canada, Long Sault Parkway (between Long Sault and Ingleside), Upper Canada Golf Course 1000 Islands Parkway (between Brockville and Gananoque), Crysler Park Marina 100 km of waterfront on the St. Lawrence River, Upper Canada Migratory Bird Sanctuary over 30 km of bike paths, Crysler’s Farm Battlefield (adjacent to Upper Canada Village). Sure, if you want to stretch things out over a 200km corridor and lump them in together then go for it, but the idea that Upper Canada Village is attracting 1 million people annually isn't right.
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It still gets lots of visitors, as many other sites around the province do, and even outside of Toronto or Niagara Falls.


jn_12 said:
The fact is, the CN Tower by itself sees two-to-three times more people than Burlington does, so even if all of Toronto's visitors aren't going to the Tower everytime they visit, it isn't even necessary because it still outperforms entire cities and regions.
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... which still doesn't mean it's the right site for an aquarium. The Eiffel Tower is number one in France but it doesn't mean they would ruin a monument and build tourist attractions at the base of it.
 
markel said:
Actually the National Aquarium in New Zealand is situated in a town called Napier which is no where near what you can call a "major metropolitan city". It isn't even a suburb of a large city, Auckland, Chirstchurch, etc. It is on a smaller scale but still shows that investments will happen if it is planned properly.
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Just wondering, do you know who built that? The name ("national....") gives me the impression it was public funds (but I don't know) .....if we want to build this with taxpayer money then a debate over the location is warranted.....if we want the private sector to build it, we have to accept that it is their money and telling/ suggesting that they build it in Burlington ( or any other smaller place) may just kill the project entirely.
 
Good grief. Ford was trying to get Ripley's to provide parking? The future of downtown projects and traffic is not bright if Ford increases the requirement for parking in new developments.
 
Wow.. really? Mr. Ford, across the street there's this useless old train shack with pointless grass around it that can be paved over for plenty of cars.
 
Well wait a second, they're not providing any parking at all ? I'd figure there would be some parking on site.

It may not be that hard to build in ... anyway, there will be a lot of drivers to this site as well ... which is fine (or should I say, can't be helped).


Any more info regarding this?
 
The Toronto Star just published this article :

City aquarium project nears final approval
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/932475--city-aquarium-project-nears-final-approval?bn=1

According to the Star the three levels of government will contribute $30 Million in TAXPAYER money to this private venture (by Billionaire Jim Pattison).

Bad enough that we have a private developer proposing to build a 3rd rate eyesore of an aquarium at the base of Toronto's most important landmark, now it looks like the taxpayer will be footing $MILLIONS in the construction costs!
 
Tewder said:
The Eiffel Tower is number one in France but it doesn't mean they would ruin a monument and build tourist attractions at the base of it.
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The bottom of the Eiffel Tower is a well-thought-out beautiful and grand space. The base of the CN Tower is an odd site, and it's a dump.
 
Peepers said:
The Toronto Star just published this article :

City aquarium project nears final approval
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/932475--city-aquarium-project-nears-final-approval?bn=1

According to the Star the three levels of government will contribute $30 Million in TAXPAYER money to this private venture (by Billionaire Jim Pattison).

Bad enough that we have a private developer proposing to build a 3rd rate eyesore of an aquarium at the base of Toronto's most important landmark, now it looks like the taxpayer will be footing $MILLIONS in the construction costs!
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So if it wasn't '3rd rate' as you seem to indicate that would be OK ? The grounds for tax breaks really don't revolve around what the project brings from a architectural point of view, rather, the amount of jobs it will create / tourist it will attract / businesses it will help. If your argument is that it's going to be so terrible that no one will come ... then sure ...

Secondly - there's not likely to be any direct subsidy of the construction cost whatsoever - it's tax breaks that are likely in place.

Thirdly, you do know that just about all the major office towers built in the last 5 years in downtown Toronto were provided tax breaks as well by the city ?


Anyway regarding my point about parking - I realized given the location any sort of underground parking may have been a huge challenge - I think if they can make it easy to get from the convention center parking to this then that'll suffice.
 
taal said:
So if it wasn't '3rd rate' as you seem to indicate that would be OK ? The grounds for tax breaks really don't revolve around what the project brings from a architectural point of view, rather, the amount of jobs it will create / tourist it will attract / businesses it will help. .
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Thats right. The taxpayer should only be getting involved if it is a first rate facility (e.g. comparable to Atlanta) after all the better the Aquarium the bigger the tourist attraction thereby bringing about the biggest benefit to the city in terms of tourist dollars.

The best location for this attraction would have been Ontario Place where they would have had room to expand and a prominent waterfront location (also ample parking). Having it at Ontario Place would have helped to rejuvenate the park while still being able to feed off tourists from nearby attractions like the CN Tower.
 
I'm a bit dumbfounded that there was even discussion of parking requirements. It's downtown. There's no shortage of parking downtown. In fact, within a 5-minute walk, there's probably oodles of underutilized parking, especially on weekends when activity will peak.

It goes back to the most ridiculous argument I heard during the St. Clair ROW debate - that tourists demand parking. My response: "In how many great world cities do the majority of tourists drive?"
 
Peepers said:
Thats right. The taxpayer should only be getting involved if it is a first rate facility (e.g. comparable to Atlanta) after all the better the Aquarium the bigger the tourist attraction thereby bringing about the biggest benefit to the city in terms of tourist dollars.

The best location for this attraction would have been Ontario Place where they would have had room to expand and a prominent waterfront location (also ample parking). Having it at Ontario Place would have helped to rejuvenate the park while still being able to feed off tourists from nearby attractions like the CN Tower.
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As far as I'm aware it's only you that is calling this a 3rd rate facility. You might as well suggest that we not fund the ROM because it isn't the British Museum or the Louvre. Fact is that this is going to be a very significant aquarium and your desires for an Atlanta-esque aquarium are absurd. You need to realize that the difference between this aquarium and the Atlanta aquarium is that Atlanta's aquarium is their main tourist attraction. In our case, this aquarium will only be an attraction that adds depth to our product and hopefully offers people a reason to stay another day. A similar example is the New England Aquarium in Boston, which is by no means the quintessential attraction in Boston but is still very popular (1.3-1.5 million visitors annually) despite being half the size of this proposal. We're going to get a really good attraction here and it's certainly not 3rd rate in any sense. If you want grandiose and wish that we only have the biggest and most overwhelming attractions, move to Dubai.

Also, sure an aquarium at Ontario Place makes sense, but how wuold that location be better? You're talking about an aquarium at the foot of the city's biggest attraction. How can that not be successful and how would an Ontario Place site compete with that? We now have a chance to have two awesome attractions because the aquarium won't be at Ontario Place. Ontario Place can now be reimagined to be an attraction worthy of people staying another day to visit in addition to this new aquarium. It's not exactly rocket science to determine that two great attractions are better to have than one.
 
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I tend to agree ... I'm not big on the whole it needs to be by the water ...

I can see points for how this would have helped Ontario place - but assuming Ontario place has other plans to fix it self (and eventually will be a great attraction on its own) it's nice to have these in separate locations. I still think they have room to expand upwards and backwards;

It's not going to be 150,000 to start from what I recall, the first phase is only around 90,000 I think.


Parking matters in North America ... it really does ... we want to cater to school groups with buses / large SUVs for suburban families ... as long as there is ample parking around and in very close proximity it will be OK - I think this is the case so I'm fine with this.
 
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