Toronto St Lawrence Condos at 158 Front | 91.44m | 26s | Cityzen | a—A

dufferin1 said:
It's been said before, but this is a predictably ugly street wall
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, it's worth repeating. What's with all that exposed ductwork behind the upper half of the windows? It's very strange, are there other building like that in Toronto, or is this just some special experiment unique to this building?

Also, while I'm glad to see businesses moving into these units, those decals slathered all over the dentist's windows are a travesty. Are there some bylaws about signage that are not being enforced anymore, or can businesses put up as many "first party" signs as they please?

Apologies for a bit of a side rant, but I don't really understand all the non-retail businesses that are taking retail street front space these days when they might be better suited to office space. This seems to be a trend with dentists, and even a legal firm at King and Sumach. They lease a bunch of street front retail, then they cover all the windows over with decals or blinds to blank them out, creating a desolate dead zone to walk past. Why do this? Isn't there a vast surplus of empty office space in Toronto at the moment? Wouldn't it be much cheaper to lease space that wasn't directly fronting the sidewalk? These businesses are not really impulse buys so I don't see the benefit. My dentist is on the 19th floor of an office tower and I found them through a referral, not from randomly walking by some decals of smiling people.
 
It's a result of zero care being put into the street level experience of these buildings, a major issue with a lot of new construction. Between the exposed ducting, closed blinds and window film, this one is absolutely miserable at grade. And it's a shame too because the rest of the building is quite sharp.

Clearly no foresight was put into the type of businesses that might occupy these retail spaces, but for starters I'd love to see a ban on all-glass cladding at ground level in most cases. Extend the masonry down to street level and at least create the appearance or rhythm of narrower frontages that mimic your traditional commercial strips. Try to find ways to discourage window film as well, it's a scourge.
 
I mean, it gives the street level experience "character", like one would expect out of a Newark strip mall...
 
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