Toronto The James at Scrivener Square | 88.21m | 23s | Tricon | COBE Architects

4 storey precast base with retail at grade - check
30-something "point tower" designed to alleviate shadows while still gaining density - check.

Ok... here's my opinion:
I'm sure any proposal for this site would receive opposition from neighbourhood groups (including the wealthy TLTC) but... on some level they're right.
Toronto has gone gaga for height and along the way we've lost the plot. Not every square inch of this city needs to be developed into a forty storey "point tower" with a mediocre precast base. And no, I don't think this is an anti-development or anti-intensification stance.
Can we not develop and intensify without resorting to out of character developments, simply dulled by the argument that: "it's a point tower so it won't leave a shadow." What about a 38 story building in Kensington Market? St Lawrence Market. Toronto has beautiful and unique mid-rise and even low-rise neighbourhoods, slapping a point tower and arguing that its ok because it's a point tower to be completely misses the point of how to create positive development in this city. At the end of the boom we'll look at what we've created and we'll have a legacy of forty storey point tower's with mediocre bases and the strenght of this city will be lost. A point tower isn't a panacea for intensification and development and perhaps we need to stop looking at it as such. Call me a NIMBY but... not every redevelopment site needs a point tower and we may hate the denizens of Rosedale but in the long run they may be doing us a favour.
 
I was in the area today checking it out. I agree with the NIMBYs on this one.
 
If for no other reason than to not overpower the North Toronto Station clock tower by as much, the height of this project should come down. That would be showing Scrivener Square some real respect.

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I have been following this discussion and have carefully considered both sides of the conversation. Until Inter stated perserving the character, context and massing of the Clock Tower, I had not made up my mind.

His arguement holds dear to someone living in Ottawa where the Peace Tower has been damaged by towers that are too tall and too bulky.

This is too high for the area. Make the clock tower the centre of the hood.

As for the restaurant next to the tracks, have you guys never been to Europe? There are coffee shops and high-end eateries next to tracks and platforms.
 
Having been on a Euro-tour in recent months I would suggest that anything dramatic ANYWHERE in this city would be a good thing.
 
I doesn't look like they're proposing anyhting dramatic: just tall (for the area).

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The North Toronto Station is the dramatic feature of this area. Nothing should detract from it being the focal point of the neighbourhood.
 
The decrease from 38 storeys in the original proposal to 26 in the revised proposal pretty much proves that the original was only ever intended as a scare tactic, and to make 26 seem reasonable in comparison. If this does make it to the OMB, one would hope that the board members would see that for the transparent ploy that it is.

Anything more than a couple storeys taller than the Thornwood condos would be completely wrong for this site.

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I suppose I'll drop my objections to the height of the condo proposed here, as it's going to be iconic. I'm glad they told me that, because otherwise this proposal just seems so obscenely out of scale compared to the rest of the buildings in the area, like the dubiously short campanile at North Toronto station currently dominating the local skyline.

finally straightened-out 42
 
The area in question was the subject of a small book detailing a 1970ish plan to raze this area and replace it with towers. There would have been an on-ramp where the railway pedestrian bridge is right now, and a number of older houses would have been demolished. Interestingly, though the plans clearly called for the North Toronto Station to be demolished entirely, and though there was a huge effort that went into killing the plan, the book detailing the fight makes not one mention of the station. In that era, no one cared that it was to go. Completely unthinkable now.

Anyways, this building is grotesquely out of scale with the neighbourhood around it.
 
Why not learn from the existing Scrivener Square condos? Sure, they may be modest midrise and a little fussy (though gladly not Chedington-fussy) for "Toronto Style" taste; but all in all, their manners are good...
 
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