Toronto Union Park | 303.26m | 58s | Oxford Properties | Pelli Clarke Pelli

[CanadianNational]

Equally exciting is the fact that this could present the opportunity to eliminate a choke point on the rail approaches to Union Station and forestall the ridiculous plan to stop running the Georgetown and Milton lines into Union.

This would be excellent news.

It will be interesting to see how this site and the possibility of decking over the tracks will be handled. It's too bad that Ripley's aquarium got scheduled to be built when it did - if it had been delayed until this project was in development, perhaps the entire area between Simcoe, Front, Bremner and John could have been developmentally co-ordinated.

I can't imagine a new convention centre building for exhibition space over the south entrance - there's not enough room. Most of the show space in the south end is under roundhouse park. A tower, maybe - if they sacrifice some of the front yard.
I could see a new convention hall buried on the north side, though, and connected under the tracks to the south entrance. Ground level at Front could rise across the site to create a a platform across the tracks - one that could touch back down on Bremner if the south entrance and garden was reconfigured. This is the sort of scale and involvement of planning that is seen in the Hudson Yards plans.
That would potentially free up almost full street length access along Front, giving a great deal of flexibility as to how offices, facilities, retail, etc., could be place on this large new site.

The idea of the creation of new rail space and stations is an interesting one.

 

[Silence&Motion]

Found these images on Google maps that give a sense of what the tracks look like in this section. They look complicated.

 

[jje1000]

It might be possible to do a single span crossing without piers, but I'd imagine that it'll be quite expensive.

 

[AHK]

Equally exciting is the fact that this could present the opportunity to eliminate a choke point on the rail approaches to Union Station and forestall the ridiculous plan to stop running the Georgetown and Milton lines into Union.

I am not sure, and in this case really asking if someone does know for sure - is the capacity constraint behind the intention to move the Georgetown and Milton line platforms to a new station west of Union due to a choke point in the rail approaches, or is it due to the number of platforms available within Union Station, given the dwell time required for trains to unload and load passengers, especially during peak periods? From what I have seen, when trains are paused in the western approach to Union Station, they get the go-ahead to move into a platform without a train going the other way having cleared the approaches.

 

[Red Mars]

I was at the PDAC (Prospectors & Developers) trade show today only to spend more time walking around different portions of the convention centre to access all the trade show had to offer. It would be nicer to have everything fit in one bigger uniform space. Having a food court or ample seating wouldn't hurt either.

 

[unimaginative2]

I am not sure, and in this case really asking if someone does know for sure - is the capacity constraint behind the intention to move the Georgetown and Milton line platforms to a new station west of Union due to a choke point in the rail approaches, or is it due to the number of platforms available within Union Station, given the dwell time required for trains to unload and load passengers, especially during peak periods? From what I have seen, when trains are paused in the western approach to Union Station, they get the go-ahead to move into a platform without a train going the other way having cleared the approaches.

Yeah, the main stated reason is the platform capacity. While Union's platforms are a bit unreasonably narrow, there are many stations in the world that move far more people with fewer platforms. The problem is the low-level platforms, the oversized GO rolling stock with only two doors per car, and the lack of exits. The latter is going to be solved with the reconstruction project while the GO rolling stock should be replaced with something closer to the MI2N or the various S-bahn vehicles. To give you an idea, Shinjuku station moves ten times as many people a day as Union with the same number of tracks. It's doable. Of course, what we should have done is taken advantage of the fact that we're digging out the underside of the station for the mall and relocated the tracks and their support columns so that you had large island platforms surrounded by two tracks rather than two narrow platforms surrounding a single track.

This project will also help in the essential shifting of the downtown core to a bit more of an east-west axis. Stations at Spadina and maybe Parliament could shift at least some riders from Union if they were surrounded by significant employment.

 

[UrbanFervour]

Could y'all imagine if this was Bjarke Ingels' big dt project? This is a great spot for for iconic arcitecture...

 

[claroche]

I always thought it would be cool to cover the tracks over in the downtown core and put a long, hilly park on top of them, ala Chicago (but since we can't have the waterfront per se, have the next best thing). Maybe put a large translucent window here and there (ala CN tower) to bring light down below and let park visitors see the tracks underneath them.

 

[toto]

Oxford has been renovating the R/A centre, but other than that, what have they recently built in Toronto? They have been trying to redevelop the Concourse Building with little success. 3 different proposals in the past decade. What are the chances of anything on the scale of Hudson yards ever getting off the ground. I'm guessing pretty close to zero. I'd love to be wrong, but Oxford seems to be very cautious when it comes to putting a shovel into the ground.

 

[Automation Gallery]

I always thought it would be cool to cover the tracks over in the downtown core and put a long, hilly park on top of them, ala Chicago (but since we can't have the waterfront per se, have the next best thing). Maybe put a large translucent window here and there (ala CN tower) to bring light down below and let park visitors see the tracks underneath them.

How about Federation Square a la Melbourne Australia...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_Square it would be a better fit for Spadina/Front-Bathurst

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I can see a multi-layered deck across the railway tracks, which will serve as exhibition space as well as a direct link to MTCC South. The roof of the desk will probably work as a new open space. The trusses to hold it all up (without having to resort to piers at the tracks) will be quite massive indeed, or they could use some kind of suspension system like a bridge.

AoD

 

[bAuHaUs]

IT would be amazing if some of the rail road tracks could be covered !!! Anybody know of any potential projects that would aim to cover the rail tracks!!

From what I've heard, one option is to move the convention centre space over the tracks and expand it southward with full access from the areas south of the tracks.
The existing convention centre space would be redeveloped heavily. At the end of the day, the existing convention centre space (gross square footage) needs to be retained.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I'm concerned about expanding the convention space underground below the tracks, connecting North to South. As it would have, who knows what kind of impact on future underground transit options (not like underground Toronto isn't complicated as it is) in particular the proposed below ground Lakeshore station and any future DRL.

However I'm excited at the potential for a large table top convention space built above the tracks. Now that would be incredible.

 

[TOareaFan]

here is a link in which this project is discussed.

http://www.renx.ca/Detailed/Commercial/Oxford_Dreaming_Big_in_Downtown_Toronto_24490.html

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Thanks for the link TOareafan.

Oxford owns properties to the east and west of the almost 2-million square foot complex (which includes an office tower, the InterContinental Hotel and parking garage). ``It was classic Oxford deal in that it had the InterContinental, so we had our hotel people involved, it had the office building to the west side of the site so we could put our office people on to it and then it is a 72-year ground lease for the Convention Centre that is owned by the province and we own the block to the west and we own most of the block to the east,” Hutcheson told attendees of the RealCapital forum last week.

Does that mean the own the Station Road telco hotel site as well as the horrid Royal Bank building to the west?

Oxford has just completed a “global review” of the Front St. corridor involving architects from the U.K., the U.S. to begin the work of redevelopment. Oxford intends to announce the team that will work on the project for the next couple years and bring the various decision makers onside. “We are hoping that we can do something transformational, working both with the Convention Centre and the city in this whole corridor.”

Hmm, firms from the UK = Foster or Rogers (the latter was involved in an aborted plan for Jarvits Centre in NYC); US = SOM?

AoD