Toronto TeaHouse 501 Yonge Condominiums | 170.98m | 52s | Lanterra | a—A

That sounds promising! Likely mimicking the concrete "Brutalism" style of the building to the south or those cast concrete facades such as that stunning gov't office tower on Bay Street, the TD space at Bay&Bloor, etc.

I walked exensively around the site today and was left with the impression that many of the buildings are doomed for the bulldozer (those pos ones covered in EFS for example--roughly half the block--southern half--across the street should be redeveloped) but the remaining historic Victorian era buildings should be cleaned up/sandblasted resulting in a "Historic Yonge Street Village" bookended by modern buildings. Like you see happening on King East or West. The city really ought to encourage this process--tax breaks if your sandblast your facade perhaps?
 
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I was present at the meeting, too. I agree that the new treatment of the northern two thirds of the building is better although still not what I'd like to see on this section of Yonge. The southern third was just as awful as the stuff shown at the previous meeting. I get the division between the north and south and appreciate it, but the southern facade is truly hideous. The architect shows lots of renderings of the northern two thirds but showed virtually nothing of the southern third, and nothing of the Alexander facade.

My biggest beef with this project is not the height but the lack of setbacks from Alexander and Maitland. I stood to the west on Grosvenor today and tried to imagine the 59-storey wall of glass right up to the wall of Pi-Tom's restaurant. The street is too narrow for that. I think if the tower was set back so that it was aligned to 40 Alexander, it would be fine, regardless of the height. The problem is that there wouldn't be room for two towers if both were set back from Maitland and Alexander.

I understand why two towers is desirable from a sales perspective, but there are other ways to give people in the middle of the building some southern exposure by tapering the southern end of a tower. I think if they converted this project to a single tower with a larger footprint, many people would be less opposed to this project. This would also eliminate the need for two lobbies (and the lack of a ground-floor connector between the towers!)

I'd love to see this building with just 1 floor of parking instead of 3 (an exemption would be required). That would solve most of the problems with the facade because it wouldn't have to hide as much. And with the setbacks from Alexander and Maitland, the blocking of views would not be as severe.
 
Reducing the amount of parking will also reduce the builders profits, something I'm sure they aren't keen on no matter how much better it would be for the neighborhood.
 
Register123 said:
Reducing the amount of parking will also reduce the builders profits, something I'm sure they aren't keen on no matter how much better it would be for the neighborhood.
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genearlly there is a negative return on investment in terms of hard & soft construction costs vs parking selling prices. Which is why you typically see developers build to minimum parking requirements and applications to reduce parking requirements in most large projects.
 
Mike in TO said:
genearlly there is a negative return on investment in terms of hard & soft construction costs vs parking selling prices. Which is why you typically see developers build to minimum parking requirements and applications to reduce parking requirements in most large projects.
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Nobody put guns to the developers' heads and forced them to overpay by multi-million$ for that dud of a parcel of land ... so now the developers have to justify their purchase cost by building something so recklessly conceived with the hopes of making profits, and thinking all they have to do is apply to the OMB if they don't get their 'decoy' plans approved at the city level of government ... tells me we have nobody at any level of government in control of city-building.
We all know how the OMB process works by now ... over-shoot your development proposals knowing full well they'll get shot down, and then 'settle' for a much less intrusive structure, which would've also been denied from the onset of the proposal. So, they had asked for 58 storeys ... knowing they'd be thrilled for a couple of 40 storey structures, which would've been originally denied also, but, hey, that's how things work doncha know.

I'd love to see the OMB get investigated to see how much cash is lining their pockets.
 
WanderLust said:
Nobody put guns to the developers' heads and forced them to overpay by multi-million$ for that dud of a parcel of land ... so now the developers have to justify their purchase cost by building something so recklessly conceived with the hopes of making profits, and thinking all they have to do is apply to the OMB if they don't get their 'decoy' plans approved at the city level of government ... tells me we have nobody at any level of government in control of city-building.
We all know how the OMB process works by now ... over-shoot your development proposals knowing full well they'll get shot down, and then 'settle' for a much less intrusive structure, which would've also been denied from the onset of the proposal. So, they had asked for 58 storeys ... knowing they'd be thrilled for a couple of 40 storey structures, which would've been originally denied also, but, hey, that's how things work doncha know.

I'd love to see the OMB get investigated to see how much cash is lining their pockets.
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buddy - give it up already. developers are not "lining the pockets" of OMB adjuticators. that is an outlandish and totally baseless accusation.

your general point is taken (i too agree that Lanterra overpaid for this site and that this does not justify additional density in and of itself) but enough with the ridiculous conspiracy theories please.
 
ThomasJ said:
buddy - give it up already. developers are not "lining the pockets" of OMB adjuticators. that is an outlandish and totally baseless accusation.

your general point is taken (i too agree that Lanterra overpaid for this site and that this does not justify additional density in and of itself) but enough with the ridiculous conspiracy theories please.
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"buddy - give it up already."

Look, 'buddy', you've said this 'buddy' interjection countless times, like a Tourette's sufferer, and it's getting kind of stale. You should 'tone down your tics' already, 'buddy', and give it up and just sit there, read the threads, and move on.

Anyway, ORNGE was just the tip of the iceberg, OMB no different. Kyle Rae will probably be getting dragged into the media pretty soon, too, to explain some, *cough*, 'deals'.
 
WanderLust said:
"buddy - give it up already."

Look, 'buddy', you've said this 'buddy' interjection countless times, like a Tourette's sufferer, and it's getting kind of stale. You should 'tone down your tics' already, 'buddy', and give it up and just sit there, read the threads, and move on.

Anyway, ORNGE was just the tip of the iceberg, OMB no different. Kyle Rae will probably be getting dragged into the media pretty soon, too, to explain some, *cough*, 'deals'.
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poking fun at Tourette's? i'm surprised you weren't banned for that, dude. not cool at all (though not entirely surprising considering the source).
 
"poking fun at Tourette's " seriously dude get a sense of humor and don't be an old ninny. If you don't believe that people working in all sorts of government agencies aren't having their pockets lined , you are are the ones that are wildly delusional. Keep drinking the koolade!
 
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