Toronto Sherway Gardens Expansion | ?m | 2s | Cadillac Fairview | DIALOG

It's early, but they really need to rethink where they're reserving space for that transit hub. It's literally in the worst location possible for a neighbourhood that will house thousands of people.

You can tell it was basically an afterthought in the whole concept.
 
Amare said:
It's early, but they really need to rethink where they're reserving space for that transit hub. It's literally in the worst location possible for a neighbourhood that will house thousands of people.

You can tell it was basically an afterthought in the whole concept.
Click to expand...
Nope, in fact, it's in the spot that the TTC has protected for in any possible extension of the Bloor Danforth line. It's undoubtedly the first thing that was located. That's why the most recent extension went in that direction, too: the Gourmet Fair part of the mall reaches out to the spot where the subway station is supposed to be someday.

I'd say it's time to ramp up the pressure on getting the Bloor Danforth West extension back on the books again.

42
 
The retail in the podiums of the towers is pretty haphazard.
There isn't continuity of retail along the inner "street" so people won't congregate there - it's really a service road.
They aren't doing anything to open up the mall to the outside.
It's just infill around the periphery of the site, rather than a transformation in a cohesive town centre.
 
interchange42 said:
Nope, in fact, it's in the spot that the TTC has protected for in any possible extension of the Bloor Danforth line. It's undoubtedly the first thing that was located. That's why the most recent extension went in that direction, too: the Gourmet Fair part of the mall reaches out to the spot where the subway station is supposed to be someday.

I'd say it's time to ramp up the pressure on getting the Bloor Danforth West extension back on the books again.

42
Click to expand...
Appreciate that tidbit there. The conceptual location for that hub may have looked great on paper when it was initially conceived, prior to both this plan and the plan to redevelop all the big-box stores being formed, but it's literally on the edge of where there will be very little density. As it's looking right now, it's an ill-conceived location to have a "transit hub".

As for ramping up the pressure to extend to Bloor-Danforth line westwards, I couldn't agree more with that. The only thing is, the city's capital budget backlog gets bigger and bigger, day by day, without any plan whatsoever to address the issue. Realistically, the earliest we'd see a station here is 2040 and by that point all the current proposed buildings in the area will have long reached completion.

Thus the reason I expect there will be yet another densely populated massive transit desert in this city.
 
The reason for the hub being where it is, is that the plan is to bring the BD line south, generally under North Queen, then swing it west, facing towards Mississauga and the bright, spangly future.

You can download the draft version of the Sherway Area Plan here. It has the hub located, but doesn't show the protected underground route to/from it. (I wish I could find my old docs on that: similarly anything that gets built southeast of Dundas and The East Mall has to leave space for a station n a particular spot there…)

42
 
Bizarre that they think the approach to the public realm here is anywhere close to acceptable. Get that figured out first—treat all streets as walkable streets—let the rest follow.

42
 
Very true @interchange42, i'm aware of why the station is oriented the way it is but it doesnt by any means stop them from shifting the location a bit east to a more central area (say North Queen and Queensway).
 
Definitely does not work. To the point where its actually hard to suggest it would be an improvement on the sea of surface parking today.

The points raised above, retail configuration, 'service road' design, walkability don't really require elaboration, they are all entirely correct.

I would add two further things and say, all the remaining surface parking must go. Not remotely negotiable.

Second, The mall as configured just doesn't make sense if you're trying to make a workable community around it.

The problem is both that it hides the mall from the Queensway, which the mall should directly address at some point; but also that the giant blob of a mall makes for very awkward pedestrian movement.

I would personally eliminate the road in front of the centre of the mall.

I would use that space to bring the mall out to Queensway.

I would do so by moving one of the department stores out, and building a signature, downtown-worthy flagship department store on Queensway, then a mall entrance/arcade beside it when on the other side had a tower with both street-facing and mall retail in it.

You then use the room freed up by dropping one of the anchor stores off one of the sides of the mall to create a more fine-grained street grid there.

If I were being entirely idealistic, I would redevelop another department store using the same conceptual pattern, but not at the exact same spot, allowing a fine-grained street grid on 2 sides of the mall.

The rear, highway-facing portion of the site, is best suited to 100% service/parking purposes and to mall expansion.
 
They have likely left the internal ring road untouched to provide flexibility to future expansions and changes to the mall.

They aren't going to kill their golden goose to save a few surface lots.

But yea, this plan is terrible.

One thing I find interesting is that their transportation report states that while 26% of trips today in the area for residential uses are made by transit, only 3% of trips for retail are made by transit. For a Toronto mall, that is a shockingly low number. 95% of visitors to Sherway Gardens get there by driving.
 
The HP plan, while disappointing and lacking any sort of final vision, is an incremental improvement over what currently exists. Once this stage is underway, they'll eventually get around to filling in the remaining surface lots with suitable buildings. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Also, this is in south Etobicoke which is already littered with so many urban catastrophes that this one, given the context, hardly registers as something to be whinging about.
 
Amare said:
Very true @interchange42, i'm aware of why the station is oriented the way it is but it doesnt by any means stop them from shifting the location a bit east to a more central area (say North Queen and Queensway).
Click to expand...
They don't put stations on curves (unless it's a very wide one — East Harbour GO will be the first such station in the GTA), so anything close to the North Queen, that the subway will be curving off of, is more than highly unlikely: the City projected the underground right of way over a decade ago now, and everyone's planning around that.

Buses do serve the area, there are lots of stops, more can be added, service frequencies can be improved. As the Queensway continues to redevelop, and as the Sherway Area Plan kicks in and redevelopment kicks off in this area in a big way, maybe a Queensway branch of the 501 can come to the area at one point, and that could move people quickly to a new station, wherever it is. I think the bigger issue here is making all of the streets in the area walkable, so that in 20-whatever years, people are encouraged to walk to the station if a bus isn't going to be passing by them in the next couple of minutes.

42
 
innsertnamehere said:
They have likely left the internal ring road untouched to provide flexibility to future expansions and changes to the mall.

They aren't going to kill their golden goose to save a few surface lots.

But yea, this plan is terrible.

One thing I find interesting is that their transportation report states that while 26% of trips today in the area for residential uses are made by transit, only 3% of trips for retail are made by transit. For a Toronto mall, that is a shockingly low number. 95% of visitors to Sherway Gardens get there by driving.
Click to expand...
When I bike there, (I don't go often as it's not a pleasant bike trip into the area currently) I am often the only bike at the plentiful rings.

42
 
Irishmonk said:
The HP plan, while disappointing and lacking any sort of final vision, is an incremental improvement over what currently exists. Once this stage is underway, they'll eventually get around to filling in the remaining surface lots with suitable buildings. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Also, this is in south Etobicoke which is already littered with so many urban catastrophes that this one, given the context, hardly registers as something to be whinging about.
Click to expand...
Sorry, loud buzzer sound. The ring road public realm plan is worth whinging about: in this first plan, the mall will face parking garages. Fix the plans for those buildings so that parking is hidden away behind pedestrian-friendly ground floors, and you have something that could work. The mall, if they want to expand more, can always close a chunk at a time, and rebuild those sections as two or ten three-storey sections. No need for it to be more land consumptive, that's retrograde thinking.

42
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top