Toronto The Well | 174.03m | 46s | RioCan | Hariri Pontarini

Parkdalian said:
I think questioning is fine, but what is the point of the questioning?

- to improve future projects? Are you afraid that future projects will fail because they will follow a ā€œbadā€ design?
-for current tenants? Are you worried that they will lose money when/if the mall fails?
-do you think the building can somehow be fixed?
-to learn something new?

I donā€™t think any of the questions seem to be about this. Instead, it seems to be about somehow proving that enthusiastic people are wrong. Which is not an attempt to learn something new (the best purpose for questioning) and just a weird hill to die on.

I like the Well, but it may fail! Who cares! First of all failure isnā€™t so terrible - it sometimes means you tried something new.

Also, everything fails eventually - maybe success is really just about whether some people took some pleasure and enjoyment out of something before we died? If thatā€™s the case, this place is clearly a success.
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Yes to almost all your questions (except maybe if it can be fixed).

It's a mega project that will live for a minimum 50 years (hopefully decades more than that) - I think it is absolutely valid to question its design.

How will it influence other projects in the city? Will we have more of these semi open-air malls? Is this a one-off experiment?

And if it does fail, what happens to the area and the condo units?
 
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stevedean said:
Yes to almost all your questions (except maybe if it can be fixed).

It's a mega project that will live for a minimum 50 years (hopefully decades more than that) - I think it is absolutely valid to question its design.

How will it influence other projects in the city? Will we have more of these open-air malls? Is this a one-off experiment?

And if it does fail, what happens to the area and the condo units?
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I think the chances of failure are extremely low. The condo units aren't going anywhere and the area continues to add density everywhere. Individual stores will fail as they have for all of history but will be replaced by others. As the rise of large developments and developments centred around already built malls increases outdoor shopping areas will continue to grow in numbers.

Shops at Don Mills and Stockyards exist already and do solid business as open air malls. This isn't even the first one in the city. Mirvish Village comes to mind as another similar style open air mall/community anchored development that is about to open. Bloor and Dufferin will also have a ton of retail in its multi building development. Frankly I think the Well is just another step towards more work/live/shop communities
 
Mariner35 said:
I think the chances of failure are extremely low. The condo units aren't going anywhere and the area continues to add density everywhere. Individual stores will fail as they have for all of history but will be replaced by others. As the rise of large developments and developments centred around already built malls increases outdoor shopping areas will continue to grow in numbers.

Shops at Don Mills and Stockyards exist already and do solid business as open air malls. This isn't even the first one in the city. Mirvish Village comes to mind as another similar style open air mall/community anchored development that is about to open. Bloor and Dufferin will also have a ton of retail in its multi building development. Frankly I think the Well is just another step towards more work/live/shop communities
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Fair enough! You may be correct.
But I think time will tell - let's see in 5/10 years when the new shine has faded off.

We haven't even mentioned the specifics of the attached condos - will those age well? Will those continue to attract interest from buyers/renters in 10 years? If not, does that impact the mall?
 
stevedean said:
Fair enough! You may be correct.
But I think time will tell - let's see in 5/10 years when the new shine has faded off.

We haven't even mentioned the specifics of the attached condos - will those age well? Will those continue to attract interest from buyers/renters in 10 years? If not, does that impact the mall?
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Stockyards is about 10 years old now and busier than ever.
 
stevedean said:
Fair enough! You may be correct.
But I think time will tell - let's see in 5/10 years when the new shine has faded off.

We haven't even mentioned the specifics of the attached condos - will those age well? Will those continue to attract interest from buyers/renters in 10 years? If not, does that impact the mall?
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If the Well were to turn into a modern St James Town (which was much 'smarter' when built) the retail would presumably move 'down market' too. We will find out in 10-20 years.
 
Mariner35 said:
I think the chances of failure are extremely low. The condo units aren't going anywhere and the area continues to add density everywhere. Individual stores will fail as they have for all of history but will be replaced by others. As the rise of large developments and developments centred around already built malls increases outdoor shopping areas will continue to grow in numbers.

Shops at Don Mills and Stockyards exist already and do solid business as open air malls. This isn't even the first one in the city. Mirvish Village comes to mind as another similar style open air mall/community anchored development that is about to open. Bloor and Dufferin will also have a ton of retail in its multi building development. Frankly I think the Well is just another step towards more work/live/shop communities
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lmao it won't fail cause within the a block radius of the Well right now:

- KING Toronto by Westbank: a thousand-ish residents? occupation est. next year
- West House (88 Bathurst): hundreds of more rental units
- 400 King West: another approx 600 units
- Concord Canada House: 1400 units so approx 2000-3000 more residents occupation in progress

That's approx 5000 residents in the area?, walkable to the Well within 5 mins ish
 
karledice said:
lmao it won't fail cause within the a block radius of the Well right now:

- KING Toronto by Westbank: a thousand-ish residents? occupation est. next year
- West House (88 Bathurst): hundreds of more rental units
- 400 King West: another approx 600 units
- Concord Canada House: 1400 units so approx 2000-3000 more residents occupation in progress

That's approx 5000 residents in the area?, walkable to the Well within 5 mins ish
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Agreed. The amount of residents moving in the next 5 years is incredibly large and that doesn't even include all the planned but not approved development for the area. Apart from an extremely rare natural disaster this isn't going anywhere.
 
ā€¦.and /fail was the bowels of the Aura. This is no where near as bad as thatā€¦and will unlikely be that in 10 years or so.
 
I do have to say that the vertical circulation in the Well seemed problematic. I think there were still some aspects under construction the last time I was there, but it seemed you had to go out of your way to move between levels.

While I like the Well, I think Toronto could also something similar that was enclosed (at least in winter) that would still give the impression of being outside, only in more comfortable conditions. A lot of malls do a half-hearted version of this with some skylights.

Anyone who has been in a greenhouse in the winter knows the pleasure of basking in warm sunlight when it is -15C outside.
 
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Goodbye Giotelli
Hello Menzone

Assessment of crowd: few people outside, a lot of people inside.

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