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

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Boards are going up over the store windows today.
 

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Unsurprisingly took next to no time for this building to get covered with graffiti. If you walk behind the building, you can see parts of it getting cleared, so work is well under way.
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One can assume that the demolition, excavation, below ground and podium level construction will all happen at once. Following that, the two towers will probably rise simultaneously, or all but.

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TheKingEast said:
This is great news. That entire block is depressing.
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Haha aparently the whole street is, but according to the experts "it will get better"

Toronto’s Yonge Street evolving from sleazy ‘strip’ into a global landmark
Its latest phase may be the most dramatic yet. Yonge is about to go through big changes, becoming not just a renowned national street but a world street, with a level of density and activity that will make it feel more like Tokyo or Shanghai than the jumbled, still shabby downtown stretch that visitors see today.

More than 30 building projects, many of them soaring towers, are in the works. At one intersection alone, Yonge and Gerrard, six towers are coming, and that is on top of the immense glass skyscraper that already stands on the northwest corner. The local business group, Downtown Yonge, says that, altogether, more than 700 floors of new development are going in, bringing thousands of new residents and workers. Big retailers such as Saks and Nordstrom are coming, too.

Some see all this manic change as a threat to the character of old Yonge Street. It is. The days are numbered for places like the Ultimate Tattoo parlour and Jessi Nails, not to mention the venerable Club Zanzibar, where “The girls never stop.”
More.............http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...azy-strip-to-global-landmark/article27338652/
 
It is a bit naïve to predict a Tokyo/Shanghai style grand and super vibrant street just because more condo towers are added - Bay is full of condos and remains largely boring and deserted. The reason Tokyo and Shanghai can achieve that level of vibrancy - huge population aside - is that most of towers are commercial/office, with large numbers of high density residential neighbourhoods nearby (Tokyo actually has few skyscrapers, Shanghai's condos towers are usually not that tall either), as well as small boutique stores (with less prominent location and cheaper rent) and restaurants on each and every side street nearby. What are to be constructed on Yonge are predominantly tall residential towers - but with similar amount of retail as - if not less than what it is now (and we know much of it will not be interesting but only to serve the condo residents - for example, I will never go to Yonge/Wellesley for a RBC or a nail salon).

If we look at all the successful big names streets in the world from Tokyo to Istanbul, from New York to Barcelona, none of them is predominantly residential and height is hardly relevant. I am not against the towers replacing current ill maintained houses on Yonge at all, but in order to achieve a high level of vibrancy (Yonge/Dundas and to a less extent Queen W/Chinatown are the only place I can call vibrant. I wouldn't call Yonge/College vibrant), you need large amount of retail - a mix of everything, from high end department stores to 711, and that should happen not just ON Yonge, but need to spread all the side streets within 5 minutes walking distance to Yonge as well. From what I see, however, that is not happening.

But more condo are at least a good start. Less embarrassing than what it is like now.
 
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