Toronto Waterfront Innovation Centre | 53.03m | 11s | Waterfront Toronto | Sweeny &Co

The governments in question did not want to give any DRPs with actual teeth - just like they never gave much by the way of hard powers to WT. Their roles are designed to be advisory in nature and it is unreasonable to expect them to work miracles when the proponent are determined to produce poor designs. Where WT does have a good amount of control - public realm - the execution has exceeded the quality of what was seen in the city previously.

As to this project - disappointing in its blandness, but it won't be an eyesore - and generally conforms with the built form foreseen for the neighbourhood.

AoD
 
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Filip said:
1) HBS was 'planned' before Waterfront Toronto existed
2) HBS had secondary plans in place
3) HBS had plans for higher level transit dating back to the late 1980s
4) HBS was planned with midrises

The fact the city couldn't follow its own plans leaves me little doubt WT couldn't have either.

I also don't think it's a failed neighbourhood. Failed neighbourhoods are those where nobody wants to live and property prices are low because of it. Good luck finding a cheap condo here. I am also very excited about my condo having appreciated close to $400k since I bought it. All equity. All mine - greetings from my luxurious failed neighbourhood.

Things could be better, but they're not a failure.
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This is the last time i'll respond to HBS vs. Waterfront Toronto planning for the sake of keeping this thread on topic, but just to clarify on your points since your facts are off:

1) Waterfront Toronto was established in 1999, so if you're telling me that HBS was planned before 1999 when some of those motels were still somewhat active than you're blatantly wrong.

2) HBS had "a plan" put in place, but it in no way was it your typical secondary plan in which you're alluding to. If a secondary plan was actually in place, there would have been no way that the OMB could have just had its way and basically overuled the all of the guidelines set by the city. The OMB essitially devised a plan for HBS since the city had no concrete idea as to what they wanted to do with the area. The ball was set into motion the moment SNC-Lavalin left their offices in the area.

3) HBS had no real plans for "higher level transit". If you're referring to the Waterfront LRT, than you're kidding yourself if you think that was an actual serious plan back in the 1980s.

4) And what exactly happened to that plan with midrises? The city was overruled on every single instance by the OMB, and had Waterfront Toronto had oversight that would have never happened to the extent it did with HBS.

I have no idea what you're alluding to with Waterfront Toronto not being able to follow through with their plans...as far as I can see most of what they said they would do is being done right now. They have carefully planned things for years before even a shovel in the ground was put in the ground. If Waterfront Toronto didnt have oversight over the eastern section of Queens Quay, I can guarantee you that all we would be seen right now is another wall of condos a la Queens Quay West/Humber Bay Shores.
 
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Amare said:
This is the last time i'll respond to HBS vs. Waterfront Toronto planning for the sake of keeping this thread on topic, but just to clarify on your points since your facts are off:

1) Waterfront Toronto was established in 1999, so if you're telling me that HBS was planned before 1999 when some of those motels were still somewhat active than you're blatantly wrong.

2) HBS had "a plan" put in place, but it in no way was it your typical secondary plan in which you're alluding to. If a secondary plan was actually in place, there would have been no way that the OMB could have just had its way and basically overuled the all of the guidelines set by the city. The OMB essitially devised a plan for HBS since the city had no concrete idea as to what they wanted to do with the area. The ball was set into motion the moment SNC-Lavalin left their offices in the area.

3) HBS had no real plans for "higher level transit". If you're referring to the Waterfront LRT, than you're kidding yourself if you think that was an actual serious plan back in the 1980s.

4) And what exactly happened to that plan with midrises? The city was overruled on every single instance by the OMB, and had Waterfront Toronto had oversight that would have never happened to the extent it did with HBS.

I have no idea what you're alluding to with Waterfront Toronto not being able to follow through with their plans...as far as I can see most of what they said they would do is being done right now. They have carefully planned things for years before even a shovel in the ground was put in the ground. If Waterfront Toronto didnt have oversight over the eastern section of Queens Quay, I can guarantee you that all we would be seen right now is another wall of condos a la Queens Quay West/Humber Bay Shores.
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I'm going to ignore the rest of your post simply because you don't know what you're talking about.

The Motel Strip Secondary Plan was approved by Etobicoke City Council in NINETEEN EIGHTY EIGHT (1988) and revised in NINETEEN NINETY SEVEN (1997) a while before Waterfront Toronto appeared on anybody's radar. The Waterfront LRT was supposed to terminate at Park Lawn GO Station as per plan in 1989 - back when the city actually planned things.
 
Amare said:
Yeah, I guess i'm pretty delusional and enjoy making facts up out of thin air ;)
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Well, you did claim that:

1) Waterfront Toronto was established in 1999, so if you're telling me that HBS was planned before 1999 when some of those motels were still somewhat active than you're blatantly wrong.

Which makes you blatantly wrong - and as per your own assessment - delusional.

Cheers.
 
Filip said:
Well, you did claim that:

1) Waterfront Toronto was established in 1999, so if you're telling me that HBS was planned before 1999 when some of those motels were still somewhat active than you're blatantly wrong.

Which makes you blatantly wrong - and as per your own assessment - delusional.

Cheers.
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Tone it down guys. And @Amare did provide you with a year for the motel strip secondary plan approval - this stuff can be tracked down if need be. Just saying it is blatantly wrong without backup is just insufficient.

It isn't even that hard:

1544797651497.png


https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2008/ey/bgrd/backgroundfile-13991.pdf

Also from the old Crombie Report:

1544797839507.png


http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/bcp-pco/Z1-1988-1-1992-5-eng.pdf'

It is very clear that a secondary plan exist for the area predating WT.

MoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Tone it down guys. And @Amare did provide you with a year for the motel strip secondary plan approval - this stuff can be tracked down if need be. Just saying it is blatantly wrong without backup is just insufficient.

MoD
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The year it was approved was 1988 -

http://trca.on.ca/dotAsset/180418.pdf

It's literally in the first sentence of this document. I know you can read Alvino - don't know about some others.
 
The city didn't follow the plans for Motel Strip - but there are plenty of plans from that era that were put by the wayside - I wouldn't read into that as a WT failure one way or another - especially considering how WDL and EBF turned out and that there weren't any gross deviations from the plans in terms of built form so far. Even this architecturally meh project has a built form that is in line with what was proposed.

Anyways, isn't that what we are here about - i.e. this project and not HBS?

AoD
 
Toronto would be much better off by spending the money on micro financing and entrepreneurship and mentorship for IBPOC rather than the tens of millions on this building.

Seeing as how that won't happen, I defend the value engineering on this building because a) it's still fine and putting out fancy renders creates wild expectations and b) places that foster creativity and innovation need to be functional and adaptable (this remains to be seen about this unbuilt edifice of course) and it is the people that need to be supported. Hopefully the interior design where people will work and do great things and cross pollinate and run into each other in the halls and share ideas will lead to some cool new things that will improve our lives.

In the end, it's just a mid-rise office building with a fancy title.
 
greenleaf said:
Seeing as how that won't happen, I defend the value engineering on this building because a) it's still fine and putting out fancy renders creates wild expectations and b) places that foster creativity and innovation need to be functional and adaptable (this remains to be seen about this unbuilt edifice of course) and it is the people that need to be supported. Hopefully the interior design where people will work and do great things and cross pollinate and run into each other in the halls and share ideas will lead to some cool new things that will improve our lives.

In the end, it's just a mid-rise office building with a fancy title.
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I cannot defend it simply because architectural and design excellence is a stated goal of the organization and this projectg - and if it wasn't, then why did we have the bait and switch from the competition scheme to final product in the first place? If your chosen proponent cannot deliver in an area that is considered one of the key commitments of the organization, perhaps that organization isn't taking it seriously enough when it allowed the project to proceed.

AoD
 
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greenleaf said:
Toronto would be much better off by spending the money on micro financing and entrepreneurship and mentorship for IBPOC rather than the tens of millions on this building.

Seeing as how that won't happen, I defend the value engineering on this building because a) it's still fine and putting out fancy renders creates wild expectations and b) places that foster creativity and innovation need to be functional and adaptable (this remains to be seen about this unbuilt edifice of course) and it is the people that need to be supported. Hopefully the interior design where people will work and do great things and cross pollinate and run into each other in the halls and share ideas will lead to some cool new things that will improve our lives.

In the end, it's just a mid-rise office building with a fancy title.
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1. Toronto isn’t “spending the money” on this building; Menkes is.
2. A great building is both functional and adaptable for its tenants and visitors, and attractive to the broader community; the two need not be mutually exclusive, and pretending that they must is a get out of jail free card for shitty developers who don’t much care about exterior design excellence (like Menkes but for very rare examples).
 
I think what
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I cannot defend it simply because architectural and design excellence is a stated goal of the organization and this projectg - and if it wasn't, then why did we have the bait and switch from the competition scheme to final product in the first place? If your chosen proponent cannot deliver in an area that is considered one of the key commitments of the organization, perhaps that organization isn't taking it seriously enough when it allowed the project to proceed.

AoD
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Bold is my own emphasis - and this is what irks me about the whole project. Understandably competition proposal vs final build is going to be different, but this one felt borderline daylight robbery IMHO.
 
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