Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

Woodbridge_Heights said:
Ford, from my vantage point, ran on a platform of cutting spending and re-thinking Transit City. You can agrue in what ratio both issues were talked about but the "halt transit city" madate was one of his election promises.

I have an issue with people supporting Miller spending to cancel the bridge (it was his mandate), while deriding another (Ford and Transit City) when we don't even know if or how much the city will pay out for terminating it's contracts. To me it smacks of partisanship: Approving of one mayor's wastefull spending while deriding another just because you fall on the former's side of the political spectrum. If you don't approve of wastefull spending than you should disapprove of all mayors wastefull spending. For the record if the Transit City plan is reviewed and it is found that it would cost the city millions to back out of, or alter, it's construction contracts and Ford continues with his plan regardless, than I'll say the same about him and wastefull spending.
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Quoted for truth. And agreement.
 
FYI if you walk along the Bay street side of the station you can catch a peek of some of the construction going on. Just north of the tracks there is a large hoarding + door structure where, if the door is open, you can see some of the excavation. I was walking by there one night a few weeks ago and you could see them hauling out large chunks of concrete.
 
Hey you two... there is this cool project going on in town called the Union Station Revitalization Project. It deserves a project thread considering it is one of the largest projects going on at this time and serves far more people than the airport ever will.
 
EnviroTO said:
Hey you two... there is this cool project going on in town called the Union Station Revitalization Project. It deserves a project thread considering it is one of the largest projects going on at this time and serves far more people than the airport ever will.
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Posts about the Island Airport have been moved to the appropiate thread.
 
The LCBO closed its convenient cubby-hole location and opened a new one in Royal Bank Plaza was what I heard. The Harvey's is closing at the end of January as well. Looks like the retailers are vacating, hopefully for real work to begin.
 
ShonTron said:
The LCBO closed its convenient cubby-hole location and opened a new one in Royal Bank Plaza was what I heard. The Harvey's is closing at the end of January as well. Looks like the retailers are vacating, hopefully for real work to begin.
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Now, when/if the pinball arcade goes, *that's* the end of all authenticity there...
 
EnviroTO said:
Real work has already begun.
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I think what ShonTron was getting at is that Joe Commuter is finally now beginning to see amenities (well, in some cases, let's call them "amenities") drop off as the hoarding continues to advance and swallow up portions of the interior. When you realize how big a volume of the station has already been placed behind construction cordons over the past year with barely an impact on passenger flow it really speaks to how much underutilized space there was to begin with.

2011 will be the year the west end of the station building pretty much vanishes from the public realm. The western upper-floor offices have been vacated, as have the westernmost car rental offices in the basement, and the storefront space (wasn't it some kind of bar?) at Great Hall level quietly vanished behind a drywall barrier some time back. As was mentioned, Harvey's is shutting next month, and while I haven't noticed any closing signs up at Sweet Factory, I reckon they can't be long for this world. Curious to see what kind of walk-through access, if any, to the Skywalk will remain once the west end goes full jackhammer.

I don't actually think the timing of the LCBO's departure was pushed by the reno schedule, because as far as I know there'll be no heavy work starting in that neck of the station until the new GO concourse is finished in the west end. Likewise, both of the remaining patrons of that arcade should still have plenty of time left to perfect their big buck hunting before retiring to "Commuters Bar & Grill/Commuters Coffee" for some fine beverages.
 
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I thought the tenants moving out was due to renovations too, but the donut shop that moved out was just replaced by Tims and the lottery booth was replaced by a ball-cap shop. Perhaps they are just temporary.
 
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Somehow I can't see Tim Hortons being happy with that little shack for long. I see a full-sized restaurant along the line of the Atrium at Bay Tim's in the future.
 
So the moat is now pasable again from York Street all the way to Bay. I seem to recall everything in the tunneled section west of the subway station connection was blocked for construction, but I can't really remember when that started and what it looked like before. Was it even a tunnel before? It all looks brand new.
 
I think the new tunnel is quite elegantly lit. It even prompted me to take a photo on my way to the subway:



Here's a shot of the entrance:

 
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