Toronto St Lawrence Market North | 25.3m | 5s | City of Toronto | Rogers Stirk Harbour

DSC said:
I have heard some discussion (not official) that it might make sense to create a park on the level of the South Market 'walkway" (reached by a bridge from the walkway) and use the space at ground level to provide better loading docks for the South Market but I really cannot see that this would work too well as this would still be separated from the Market by The Esplanade.
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I heard this as well. I think there may be a reno in the offing on the lower level of the south market. I believe St. Lawrence Hall is planning for renos too to increase event rental potential for the hall.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
DSC:

Not a giant fan of elevated parks - and the way you put it would make it sound like a disaster at street level.

AoD
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The way I understood it, it might feel more quirky if anything. We know that area is being looked at closely (like Market Street). I hope they'd take special care of the pedestrian nature of the area.
 
greenleaf said:
I heard this as well. I think there may be a reno in the offing on the lower level of the south market. I believe St. Lawrence Hall is planning for renos too to increase event rental potential for the hall.
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The whole of the South Market is being overhauled at the moment (until November); brickwork, electrical and plumbing. There is also a funded project to enclose the "cloister" along Market Street and I assumed this will go ahead once the building is fixed up. The original idea was to have small restaurants etc on the east side of Market Street to mirror the new ones on the west side but I am not sure of the current plan. As far as I know, any plans for improving St Lawrence Hall will involve evicting the City offices and will only happen once the new North Market is finished and one idea is to return to the original idea where you could walk indoors from Front to King.
 
greenleaf said:
I heard this as well. I think there may be a reno in the offing on the lower level of the south market. I believe St. Lawrence Hall is planning for renos too to increase event rental potential for the hall.
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greenleaf said:
The way I understood it, it might feel more quirky if anything. We know that area is being looked at closely (like Market Street). I hope they'd take special care of the pedestrian nature of the area.
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Yes, potential renos of the lower level sound very exciting - I wish they could add one additional basement floor to the market (think Union Station dig down?) and reorganize the existing spaces better. Not convinced that an elevated public space plus ground level loading is the best use of space, but let's see what they have in mind.

AoD
 
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Torontovibe said:
I would love to see an underground connection between the two buildings but I know it's not gonna happen.
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You just have to wait for the Relief Line station.

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"Design cost checks / value engineering. City cost checks are required during the current Bid Documents Stage, at 50%, 90%
and 100% document completion. Should construction cost estimates come in over
budget, more value engineering will be required. The City will not award a
construction contract for the temporary market building, nor demolish the existing
building, without assurance that the price of the new building is within budget."

Blah. Aka take something beautiful and cheapen it so it's boring.
 
khristopher said:
"Design cost checks / value engineering. City cost checks are required during the current Bid Documents Stage, at 50%, 90%
and 100% document completion. Should construction cost estimates come in over
budget, more value engineering will be required. The City will not award a
construction contract for the temporary market building, nor demolish the existing
building, without assurance that the price of the new building is within budget."

Blah. Aka take something beautiful and cheapen it so it's boring.
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Though I agree that the end result of all this is often the dreaded 'cheapening' I am not really sure what the alternative is. The bureaucrats have been given a budget to build something (in this case the North Market) and it would clearly be wrong (and probably illegal) if they awarded a contract which cost more. There are two choices; cut the cost and risk 'cheapening' or get more money. The City has already added about $15 million to the budget for the North Market so I fear that that is no longer a serious option to add more but we shall see.
 
DSC said:
Though I agree that the end result of all this is often the dreaded 'cheapening' I am not really sure what the alternative is. The bureaucrats have been given a budget to build something (in this case the North Market) and it would clearly be wrong (and probably illegal) if they awarded a contract which cost more. There are two choices; cut the cost and risk 'cheapening' or get more money. The City has already added about $15 million to the budget for the North Market so I fear that that is no longer a serious option to add more but we shall see.
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This project makes me so bitter :( Why have a design competition if the final project will be stripped of all of its design attributes that won the competition to begin with? At this point, I'd rather this be shelved and restarted when a budget becomes available to build something deserving of this location and community significance.
 
Markets are utility spaces: if it's all tarted up, the farmers and shoppers would be akin to dirty shoes in a white-carpeted living room. I'd rather the city proceeded with a sensible variant of the architects design - it'll still be a remarkable improvement on the current tomb, in my lifetime.
 
There's no unwritten law that says markets have to be housed in pedestrian buildings. A modern urban farmers market is a mix of many sensibilities. I think the regular vendors would welcome a space with handsome lines and lots of natural light... it would make spending their time in such a place more pleasant.

But I agree with you that the existing building is beyond drab.

As to the value engineering thing - well, it's an unfortunate provision/response to runaway costs. If no one takes responsibility for spiralling costs, there ought to be a mechanism which ensures something will be built within the given time frame. Otherwise it's just bureaucrats and developers cynically pointing fingers for why a project is millions over budget, with the project still far from completion.
 
The building's not going to just be a market though, in fact the bulk of it will be given over to courts, so we will have a building that will reflect our civic pride. In 50 years time people will look back at it and say "well, in 2014, Toronto cared/didn't care enough", however it turns out.

Of course budgets are important, but if more value engineering is required, there has to be a point at which Council can revisit the project to stop it from becoming just a bigger bunker than we have now.

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