Toronto Yonge Eglinton Centre | ?m | 37s | RioCan | P + S / IBI

As much as I want to love what they're trying to do at this important Toronto intersection, it does appears that they've failed, at least by the looks of the rendering.

The entire development is quite an eyesore. Implosion would be in order if the office towers and apartment buildings weren't spinning off so much darn cash flow. Then again, with the density restrictions lifted they could easily find support for a mixed-use twin 80-storey project this location! Wouldn't that be something!
 
Those "artists conceptions" are total junk, and utterly useless.

Download the architectural drawings for the first floor from their site and had a look at them.

It's *very* clear that the whole purpose of what they are doing is to take the current open public space, enclose it, and create a three-level "ultra-store" that they can rent to someone. 12,000 square feet on the ground level, 10,000 square feet on the 2nd level, and 9,000 square feet on the third level.

This will NOT be some grand entrance to the mall or public indoor space with shops around the edges. The entrance to the rest of the mall is via a long indoor rectangular space in between this thing and the existing tower at 20 Eglinton. They'll cut the Grand and Toy in half in order to provide a new entrance to 2300 Yonge (also the building I work in. I also live at Y&E - renting, 30th floor looking North, 4 - 4x7 windows all in a row, and I love it :) ).

That much singular retail space in a single unit on the corner of this intersection would be worth a FORTUNE. All three floors connected by escalators combined would be almost as big as the Dominion PLUS both floors of the Indigo.

I *love* the open outdoor space that they're proposing to enclose. I think that the owners are purposely leaving it bare to punish the city for not letting them do what they want with "their land". (Notice that a year ago, all of the outdoor seating was ripped out. Nothing to sit on now but the huge planters and bases of the sculptures).

I might let them do something there, but they'd have to pull back from Yonge another 10-20 feet and leave a proper public space. They could do that if they got rid of the mall walkway (in green in the drawings) and forced whomever was to get the retail space to integrate/allow a mall entrace through their first floor.

I do agree the wind on the corner isn't so great, but a) Y&E is on the top of a hill, the wind is not going away, and b) if the city will *ever* get things going on the TTC redevelopment across the street, maybe there'll be something to mitigate the wind a tad. It's a pathetic comment on the city's bureocracy that it's been sitting vacant for how long now? with no start on development in the middle of the hottest development boom in ages.

I sure hope they're not putting too many restrictions on that site. It is another location that nimbyism and anti-height paranoia has NO PLACE.

You know what *is* awesome about the Y&E corner? Being able to see the sky and have sun on your face, and the open space right at the corner there. I'd hate to have it totally hemmed in by tall buildings. It's important for the open space to be part of where you're going. The open space at Dundas square ... is pretty plain, empty, and unused. Where do you need to go that crosses Dundas square?

PS: I *love* the Minto towers, and I'm not a nimby, especially for "Subway Nodes" like this. But a super dense maze of ultra tall buildings is *not* pretty to live inside of, it's only pretty from a far distance. You don't build a neighborhood to look at it from a distance. You can't see the beautiful Minto towers from 4 blocks away if there's 4 blocks of other towers in the way. So, my initial gut reaction to the idea of yet another tall tower on the NE corner of Y&E, or a whole row of 50 story buildings walling in Yonge (as some of you dream of), is negative. I agree there are *tons* of sites at Y&E perfect for development. How about we simply start with all the existing parking lots!
 
Throwing up shitty ad hoc additions to existing buildings is what, by in large, makes Toronto an ugly city. This ranges from a landlord's DIY particle board window box on a Victorian bay and gable up to the multi-million dollar redo of the Dundas entrance of the Eaton Centre complete with the tacky media tower. Yorkville is so far gone in this direction that "the shitty makeover" might as well be its architectural vernacular.
 
^No need to be terse, the issue of maximizing returns was not at issue in Hipster's comment. That said while I appreciate the desire for aesthetic purity as I grow older I grow less and less fond of it especially when it comes at the expense of people and flexibility. The flexibility of a building in form and regulation to be re-used, re-adapted and maybe even to be rendered ugly through "wreckovations" is a far more desirable trait in my opinion than aesthetic concerns. Maybe the question should be why can't we do both? Architects and designers want their creations to be everlasting, immutable and pure. This is why they make the worst city planners. There is need and should be room in our cities for this kind of design but I think it should only make up a few percent of the built form.
 
I agree that flexibility and an 'organic use' of space is more important than aesthetic purity, but I think that Toronto developers - from the very big to the very small - do it in a very sloppy way.

Still...

You obviously can't grasp the concept of value maximization. Landlords are just trying to squeak out more leasable space per square foot in high rent locations.
Click to expand...

There are cities where value maximization is far, far, far more important than it is in our rather low-slung flat North American metropolis. The Londons, Parises, New Yorks and Madrids of the world where you can squeeze money out of scraps of property like water from a dishcloth can somehow get away with using existing space creatively, or not sarcificing public areas for rent generating property.

Also, there is something to say about how value cannot be maximized if the addition is plain ugly. My example about the particle board window box is pretty telling: you can argue for a rise in property value based on the added living space, but such a tawdry renovation will never be seen as a premium product, so you forfeit value maximization in another way. This RioCan addition will be the same only, of course, larger and more expensive.

It's like that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa is engaged to Hugh Grant in the future. The camera pans down Evergreen terrace and everyone's home looks shiny and futuristic, but the Simpsons still live in the same house except with ramshackle wooden additions to the side.
 
Remember: Yonge-Eg's gone through something like this before (i.e. the 90s Indigo/multiplex remake of the Yonge face)
 
Closing in Y/E corner.

Have you heard that the omnipotent Riocan is floating another plan to cover the NW corner of the Y/E Centre? My source tells me Riocan, the Councillor (Stintz) and the City Planners are trying to fly this old chestnut under the radar. The previous owners (Greenwin) tried it on in 2003 at the CoA but got knocked back.

The Y/E Centre was able to be built over a street (Starrett) with the promise that public open space would be maintained, but greedy developers want their increased density and their cake it seems all with the apparent tacit approval of the elected official and City "planning staff".

Some urban planning, eh!
 
Permit application signs were put up last week in the square, stating that RIOCAN has applied for a permit to allow a 5 st extension on one tower and a 7 st extension on the other + extension to retail at grade. It doesn't specify which tower is getting what extension or where the retail expansion would be (likely the same extension talked about here).
 
Actually, I just found this online:

5 storeys to the 20 Eglinton Avenue West Tower
7 storeys to the 2300 Yonge Street Tower
 
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