jmacmillan
Active Member
It's easier to clean the outside windows than a French balcony's.
Toronto The Uptown Residences | ?m | 48s | Pemberton | Burka
Mike in TO
Senior Member
Balconies do not count towards municipality mandated outdoor amenity space.
MisterF
Senior Member
Right. The point of amenity space is to have space that everyone in the building can use, outside the apartments. Balconies don't qualify.
syn
Senior Member
I'd say there's more to it than that. There are a lot of fine details that would take money to create...money developers don't want to spend. Materials of that quality would cost more too.
marcus_a_j
Senior Member
I guess the zoning examiner in Vaughan who said balconies are included in the calculation of amenity area is wrong, which I used as my reference source. (Then again it's Vaughan I am referring to, and the zoning examiner did contradict the "amenity area" definition in the zoning by-law, which states "the space outside a dwelling unit...").
Thank you for correcting me.
Towered
Senior Member
CityPlaceN1
Senior Member
Labour was much cheaper in those days.
Mike in TO
Senior Member
A developer can utilize whatever materials the commercial client wants or in the case of residential whatever the market will allow. The average middle-income condo purchaser doesn't have tens of thousands of extra dollars to spend on limestone cladding with hand crafted details unless it is a very very high-end development - which the Uptown is not. There is a significant cost difference between pre-cast and limestone.
It isn't the developer that pays for the cladding at the end of the day, every last penny is passed onto the end user - affordability is always a concern unless it's a super luxury building.
With respect to this project specifically, my understanding is that the podium will have black granite facing onto Bulmato street and precast cladding on the tower portion.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Concrete can be quite beautiful, depending on colour and texture. And just take a look at the south side of the Sony Centre fly tower and you'll see that stone can discolour terribly with age.
ganjavih
Senior Member
In general though, stone ages much better than concrete. Dirty old stone buildings still look charming, while stains on concrete just make it look shabby, not to mention that concrete crumbles. With respect to the Uptown, I hope that the precast cladding is kept simple. If done well, it could look something like the Rockefeller Center:
If they put French Quarter style phoney decorations and details, it may look more like this:
If they put French Quarter style phoney decorations and details, it may look more like this:
adma
Superstar
Though the funny thing is, in this age of PoMo-Deco-retro backlash and trendy worship of Koolhaasian futuristic fantasies, there might be a certain school of thought that'd prefer flashbacks to Rockefeller's Folly than to Rockefeller Center...
casaguy
Senior Member
Taken this morning...
Redroom Studios
Senior Member
cool vertical panorama!
casaguy
Senior Member
I thought my eyes were deceiving me this afternoon, but most definitely there are two very close tower cranes ready for action. One crane has the Pemberton branding and the other crane has the Bazis branding. This site is going to be very interesting to watch.
What would you say? 60 feet? 70 feet apart?
The first two pics are jumbo sized panoramas. (Posted on the Crystal Blu thread as well.)
The crane off in the distance in between the two foreground cranes is the BSN crane.
What would you say? 60 feet? 70 feet apart?
The first two pics are jumbo sized panoramas. (Posted on the Crystal Blu thread as well.)
The crane off in the distance in between the two foreground cranes is the BSN crane.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Cool, but slightly insane!
I was beginning to think that once Uptown got above ground the crane for Blu would go in as I was thinking the site was too tight for two cranes. Silly me!
I was beginning to think that once Uptown got above ground the crane for Blu would go in as I was thinking the site was too tight for two cranes. Silly me!