Toronto St Lawrence Market North | 25.3m | 5s | City of Toronto | Rogers Stirk Harbour
mburrrrr
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Nov 18, Nov 17, Nov 13 and Nov 2
DSC
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Latest word on completion. Last week I asked one of the white hats when it will be finished. He said, "late 2023". in the hope he was wrong I asked another City contact and was told that they 'hope' to have the Farmers in 'early in 2024". Not too speedy!
Lenser
Senior Member
Nice building all the same. A welcome addition to the 'hood and a lovely replacement for the nondescript, clinical box which preceded it.
wmedia
Senior Member
While stuck in traffic last week, I stumbled across some similar orange at Bloor and Dovercourt. I'd never seen this before. The new Postal Station E.
From Google Street View:
From Google Street View:
telefann
Active Member
Splashes of colour would certainly mark a welcome departure in a city whose dominant "design" philosophy in the past two over-spandrelized decades has been a numbing, nihilistic mediocrity of infinite greyness.
Northern Light
Superstar
My turn, from my second-last photo stop (and last planned one) on yesterday's walk; photos taken November 23rd, 2022:
Lets peek in that open bit on the south side!
Now back outside: (the new sidewalk on Jarvis is pretty much done, lights turned on, trees planted)
Note all the squares on the sidewalk panels around the trees, this is indicative of 'floating sidewalk' which does not compact the ground the trees are planted in here, which is a continuous trench.
While this is nowhere near as good for the trees as open-to-the-air soil, in light of the narrow sidewalk space here, it was the best that could be achieved.
One more peak inside, this time along the eastern elevation:
Lets peek in that open bit on the south side!
Now back outside: (the new sidewalk on Jarvis is pretty much done, lights turned on, trees planted)
Note all the squares on the sidewalk panels around the trees, this is indicative of 'floating sidewalk' which does not compact the ground the trees are planted in here, which is a continuous trench.
While this is nowhere near as good for the trees as open-to-the-air soil, in light of the narrow sidewalk space here, it was the best that could be achieved.
One more peak inside, this time along the eastern elevation:
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AlvinofDiaspar
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The cast in place concrete sidewalk and the treepits felt so lazy.
AoD
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While I agree the tree-pits are a bit 'lazy' they were not 'cast-in-place'. The 'lids' arrived on site ready-made and were put on top of the (large) pit below, resting on ledges. As @NorthernLight notes, these are large pits but not as good as open ones but the sidewalk space is very limited on Jarvis so is probably the best we can hope for. That said, I wish they had used proper metal tree guards (as on Wellington) rather than the 'lips' they used. The trees will be used as bike posts etc and will almost certainly need to be replaced, often! The Wellington ones, which are also on top of large(r) pits look like"
UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
I would take tree pits over planters anyday. A lot easier to get around, especially when sidewalk real estate is at a premium.
junctionist
Senior Member
I agree. There should have been a high-quality public realm planned in conjunction with this project instead of the utilitarian sidewalks that are being installed.
The trees have a tiny amount of soil surface and are still probably going to get destroyed by salt in the winter and a lack of water in the summer (and probably dog pee as well). There are no indications of irrigation. The people who plan this stuff seem to function on autopilot, executing the same doomed-to-fail street tree planting schemes year after year.
When trees planted this way actually grow and mature, it's usually because there coincidentally happened to be a kind person in the area that watered them or because the specimens were unusually hardy. Or, there was a leaky pipe underground that irrigated them.
It's the city's old town dating back to the 18th century. Any other city would have relished the opportunity to have an attractive public realm in an area like this one. Why not make it happen?
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Northern Light
Superstar
Soil volume is actually good, as can be seen in my post from early October, here:
That said, you are correct that there is no irrigation contemplated, so far as I know, certainly there is no evidence for any system in the above photo. That is unfortunate.
I agree that it could be better. Interlock paving would have been preferable.
That said, you weren't going to get exposed soil tree planters without sidewalk widening. There simply isn't enough room.
Either the building would have to have been setback further (shrunk) or Jarvis needs a road diet.
I would frankly be happy to support the latter, but that is beyond the scope of this project, taken in isolation.
The same is true of the Front St. frontage which also requires additional pedestrian circulation space.
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I agree that the Jarvis sidewalk remains narrow but could only have been wider by shrinking the Market floor or giving the road a diet - as you say, outside the scope of this project but not impossible 'one day'. I think the Front Street sidewalk (except right at the corner) is actually pretty wide (or will be once the construction fence goes.) In addition, the new building does not seem to go as far into the corner area as the old one.
Red Mars
Senior Member
Nov 26, 2022
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