Toronto West Harbour City | ?m | 36s | Plaza | BDP Quadrangle

Santa Monica

Mods, I know I'm way off track, you can delete this later if you like, but once in a while a good scrap is a fine thing.

From an article on urban poverty in the US:
Individual city profiles come from the broad range of US cities that participate in the report. They have widely different average per capita incomes and are located in various parts of the country. For example, Santa Monica, California, a city of 83,000 with a per capita income of $58,000, reports 728 singles and 142 households with children were sheltered homeless in 2007. In contrast, Philadelphia, with a population of 1.4 million and a poverty rate of 23 percent, reports 8,103 individuals and 5,300 households with children in this category.

Point of the paragraph being that much richer Santa Monica has a huge problem with homelessness, while much poorer Philadelphia has a lesser problem. Perhaps SM's "incredibly strict controls" are designed to ensure poor people relocate elsewhere in the urban disaster that is LA. After all, why should they be close to the water?
 
Archivist:

Excellent point - city mandated architecture and design standards can be great, but it can also easily be used as tool for excluding socioeconomic classes deemed undesirable. Case in point - Seaside, FL.

The role of the city should be to prevent planning, architecture and design disasters from happening (which are relatively few and far in between in Toronto nowadays, believe it or not), not to enforce design excellence at the cost of exclusion.

Beyond that, you should realize the city is relatively powerless in asserting zoning and design standards, considering the role of the OMB.

AoD
 
Archivist said:
Actually, Investor, I usually compare Toronto with cities, rather than resort-style subsections of urban agglomerations. For the record, in the past year I've been in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Seoul, Rio, Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Curitiba, Salvador, Rotterdam, Boston, New York, Savannah, Vancouver, Calgary, Moncton, Seattle, Portland, Iqaluit, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Amman, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, and probably some others. You picked the wrong person to call "insular".
Click to expand...

That's quite impressive arch. You must be racking up some pretty hefty frequent flier miles. What line of business are you in?

As far as SM goes, it is hardly some sleepy beach town. It's more like a neighbhorhood of Los Angeles than a city. They just have very very strict controls on development and actually are more of a socialist republic than Toronto. It has nothing to do with xenophobia, I assure you. You are probably thinking of Manhattan Beach.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Beyond that, you should realize the city is relatively powerless in asserting zoning and design standards, considering the role of the OMB.

AoD
Click to expand...

Again, this is an off-track philosophical discussion, but my point is that the city/province should be given more control over the process. Maybe Manhattan is a better example to follow.
 
investor, your response to my nasty jabs is gracious, and I appreciate that. Apologies. I actually have a weird soft spot for LA and its various neighbourhoods, and after a few visits have never been able to bring myself to dislike the city, which is what I imagined would happen before I visited it.

My travelling was all leisure, not that I'm rich, but I did a self-funded leave from my employ in the Ontario government to travel. A great time, and really, honestly, quite reassuring from the point of view of looking at Toronto's development. My beef is with those who cherry pick interesting projects or developments from around the world and then critique the city from a truly distorted point of view. A whole city is quite a different kettle of fish from a project here or there which is exciting or well handled. I don't think Toronto would come out at the top of any kind of urban development awards, nor would we be at the bottom. I guess my point is that, especially given its North American context, we do pretty well. Certainly, from what I have seen, nothing to be ashamed of.
 
Re - Alvin's assertiion that Urban Planning Disasters are relatively few and far in between in Toronto nowadays, believe it or not. I believe it, because I've seen it. In general, I try to be generous with cities that I visit, as I try to be with Toronto. I genuinely love cities, and I truly believe that the era we live in is a great one for city building, with a remarkable variety of architecture and an acute awareness of city building. It is all too easy to gripe about current developments, with a rosy eye to past history, and an even rosier eye to what is happening elsewhere, and sometimes I find that tiresome.
 
And another point which sometimes seems to be lost on investor: Urban Toronto isn't a strict condo + real estate + development forum, but more of an all-around egalitarian urban-issues sort of place (though it'd be nice if we had a "Curbed Toronto" kind of thing).

Re Santa Monica (and remember that we're dealing with an independent urban jurisdiction--yes, it is a city, even if it's a de facto "LA neighbourhood"--of 80-90 thou vs one of 2.5 million; the scale's easier to handle): imagine if an "Urban L.A." forum existed. It'd be yuppie-silly if it were a "Santa Monica Rools OK" sort of place; indeed, it'd be a place where it'd be safe to celebrate and embrace aspects of Watts or East L.A. or anywhere else as well.

And finally, to get back on topic: it isn't that we don't disagree with the "density for the sake of it" argument, either. There *is* a mixed blessing to the Cityplacing of Toronto; and re West Harbour City and its neighbours, I tend to sympathize with the old Friends of Fort York perspective that Cityplace-style asparagus stalks were better off confined east of Bathurst. But relative to reality outside the dank, confined, slick-yuppie-insular world of condo real estate wheeling-dealings, I'd say these cries of doom on investor's part are heavy-handed. Even if these developments aren't first-rate, I highly doubt they're going to wind up half-empty high-rise crack dens a la Dupont/Lansdowne--more than likely, they'll be like Bay Street condos, architecturally mediocre-to-execrable, but serene as an old shoe regardless.

Sure, you can't polish a turd. But in a (perhaps sometimes extemporaneously) well-tended urban macro-environment, turds can make great fertilizer...
 
Some updated site pictures

First post here so please go easy on me :)

I'm a purchaser in Phase II. I purchased a 1427 square foot unit in February, 2007 for $380 per square foot (after the cash back that was being offered at the time.) Call me nuts but compared to a lot of the other designs, I actually like the look of the buildings. I know that they are not everyone's cup of tea but there are a lot worse out there...

Two thoughts to make here... It was suggested that the developers could not make any money on the project because they sold at prices that were several years old. I had this question and asked the staff lawyer who worked for the builder as part of an interview process I went through prior to purchasing. They told me that they cease pre-selling once they hit 70% or so of the unit sold. This is enough to ensure they get bank financing and allows them to sell the remaining 30% or so of the units at market prices once construction is well under way. At a current average of $450-$500 or so per square foot already in the area, I'm already up $100,000 or so on paper so the developer will be in a position to make some good money once they start to sell the remaining units.

Second, there was a request for some current site pictures. I'm currently living close to the site and have a great construction view from my current condo so have set up a blog with pictures that I will update every week or so. As I write this, I have posted some 2007 pictures and will be updating over the next hour with pictures I've taken so far in 2008. You can view the pictures at:

http://westharbourcity.blogspot.com/

Cheers...
 
There's a plan of the Fort York area on that blog..

DSC_0062-25.jpg
 
Great post and welcome to the forum. I too like the design but think much will depend on the actual execution. That being said, considering the price and if you have a water view, you are indeed a lucky person.
 
Thanks for the welcome. The unit I purchased is a NW corner unit. We'll have views of both the water (looking west) as well as the city looking north. Would have preferred 100% south but other than a PH that was >$1,000,000 only smaller units were available when we purchased and we wanted a large square foot unit.

Currently in a SW corner unit in Cityplace (HarbourView Estates) and hoping we're not getting too spoiled with the pure south view...
 
I look forward to the aquatic, art deco style, and especially, the artist's frieze planned for the podium.
 
I am a purchaser in this one as well, Phase I back in 2005, just waiting for this one to be done so I can move in!

Great pics on the Blog, I have some pictures I can share with you as well of the demo and progress to date.
 
Question re: current valuations

Mods - sorry if you feel this question is in the wrong place - please feel free to move the post. I've posted here as I purchased in this development.

I'm looking for thoughts in terms of how to value purchased units that have not yet completed. In looking at mls.com and new sales centre in the downtown core close to westharbourcity, the average selling price of units seems to range between 500 and 600 per square foot. Is this the consensus market price for westharbourcity units? Obviously south facing units on higher floors would command a higher price... Just wondering what others thoughts were on how to gauge the current value of a property purchased several years ago but not yet finished.
 
WestHarbourCity Sales Centre to Reopen

Just posted on their website... Looks like sales are going to resume shortly for Phase I and II. Also Phase III which I believe will be immediately behind Phase I?

WEST HARBOUR CITY PHASE 1 & 2 WELL UNDERWAY: SALES WILL RESUME THIS SPRING!
Drive past the West Harbour City site and you’ll see construction cranes working away; virtually all demolition is complete and the foundations for Phase 1 are visible above ground, with Phase 2 following along quickly. Now that demolition has been completed and construction is underway, we are going to be able to establish a Sales Centre on site again to continue sales at West Harbour as well as prepared for the launch of West Harbour City Phase 3! Please register your email address with West Harbour City so that you can be updated on progress.
 
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