Toronto The Rosedale on Bloor | 185.92m | 55s | Gupta | Arcadis

The heritage building is not currently in a good state, nor is it anywhere near as nice as a number of other buildings in that area.
 
The slenderness of this building, combined with the height and the location of this tower are enough to get me excited about the impact this will have. While the street level presence has been altered significantly (eliminating retail frontage?), as a 'hotel entrance' emphasizing the hotel component, I think it looks the part. I find it interesting that they shoved the hotel component out back into a separate 10s structure, and quite frankly, I'm a little confused with entire site plan. Nonetheless, there should be some exceptional skyline views to take in from this building. You'll be able to see the entire backbone of the skyline in glorious fashion starting from One Bloor all the way south to the financial district.
 
What's going on along the Bloor Street sidewalk between the Hotel and Residential entrances is not entirely clear yet, but I am hoping that there is at least one retail entrance between the two. There are multiple openings in the wall there…

Front page story is here, by the way.

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Retail would be ideal but right now the retail there is not ideal. There are a couple little restaurants which are fine and then some dingy dollar type stores which are not kept well and make the nicer stores fronts look bad. Some form of retail would be good though.
I think the renderings look great but I am surprised that it shows Aura lit up, but does not include the Selby, x2, x or couture. I guess they didn't want to make the renders look cramped. But I think it would have helped to put the height in context.
 
Some hotels meet the street poorly like the Westin, Sheraton and the new Four Seasons. The city should discourage more such buildings from being built. Those hotels focus on making the experience of people arriving at the hotel by car pleasant with prominent driveways, but they neglect the experience of walking by on foot.

Hotels should have a grand presence along a street without creating a dead zone or wind tunnel. They shouldn't have large sections of blank walls and anonymous glass or big driveway areas along major streets. Storefronts, galleries and landscaped plazas are all better than long sections of anonymous glass or driveways.
 
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junctionist said:
I'm tired of the hotels that meet the street poorly like the Westin, Sheraton and the new Four Seasons. They focus on making the experience of people arriving at the hotel by car pleasant with grand driveways, but they neglect the experience of walking by on foot. Hotels should have a grand presence along a street without creating a dead zone. They shouldn't have large sections of blank walls and anonymous glass or big driveway areas along major streets.
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I've seen a lot worse, which I recently posted about after my visit to Atlanta.
 
salsa said:
I've seen a lot worse, which I recently posted about after my visit to Atlanta.
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That was a great post. But we have different standards for our downtown since we have many more walkable districts. While those hotels I mentioned may not be as bad as Atlanta's worst, they are low points here in our downtown core in terms of how they meet the street. Their street presence is something to improve on and not emulate or replicate.
 
I won't say I am disappointed about the height as I know this is how it works in this city. I just hope this sets a precedent for the area which is exceeded by ever greater margins over the next ten years.

salsa said:
I've seen a lot worse, which I recently posted about after my visit to Atlanta.
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That was horrific. If the 1996 Atlanta bombing guy had only taken out some of those buildings he may have gotten the keys to the city instead of a life sentence.
 
Well then, if only Tyler Durden would take a crack at Atlanta everything would be alright.
 
Greenleaf,

...had ONLY taken out some of those buildings...

So not people, only buildings. CSIS should be made aware of the fact your mind even went down that path.
 
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