AlbertC
Superstar
Nice to see that a YMCA is being planned for this site. Admittedly I have been slacking lately despite having membership, but this would be a pretty sweet location in the future.
After the long skylights have been restored and the bricked-up windows are brought back to life – some as doorways onto the park – the garage will be given back to the public as Toronto’s first food hall, and on land that once contained St. Andrew’s Market (1850-1931), a city-owned public market much like the beloved and much more successful St. Lawrence Market.
“There are, obviously, markets and there are food courts underneath office buildings, and there is Eataly coming, but there’s no version of the Rotterdam [Markthal],” says Mr. Switzer. “We looked at one in Madrid, and there’s the Chelsea Market in New York.”
Toronto’s Great Hall will most closely resemble Madrid’s Mercado de San Miguel, he continues: “You have a patisserie, you have a chicken place, and in the middle, they’ve got these wine bars and oyster bars and ice cream,” he explains enthusiastically, “so there really is nothing like that in Toronto – you just come in, you have a nosh, keep on going, but [there are] also sit-down restaurants.”
New transparencies in the old building might help achieve this: a new visual link from north to south will be made possible by maintaining the interior courtyard of the existing C-shaped Deco building, and, perhaps more importantly, office workers on bustling Spadina Avenue who look west down Camden Street will be greeted with a new view through the old Waterworks building all the way to Maud Street.
It would be nice if the northern courtyard entrance be aligned with Augusta Ave, as the building is the terminus for that street. It would also create a nice welcoming presence from Queen Street and draw more people in.
It's no longer the Ace brand which will be running the hotel across the street: it will be Le Germain's second line, Alt Hotel.With the Ace Hotel coming in on the other side of Brant Street, this area will be totally transformed and not so quiet in the next 5 years.