Leslie Slip Lookout Park - from the Mayor's Twitter feed

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Observations:

1) The paved path appears to be the Harbour Lead.

2) Not sure the safety police are going to allow no fence at the shipping channel

3) I'll have to see the species list, but based on the renders, the plan is dominated by non-native trees.

Certainly nothing native has that columnar form; Trembling Aspen and Balsam Poplar, both of which would be appropriate to a beach setting are pretty straight, but that is not them.

That also looks like weeping willow to me; where the native choice would be sandbar willow.

*****

Overall, I like the design ethos................but would prefer to see native species used more widely.

I'm happy to support the fence-free front, I just can't imaging Parks going for that.........
 
Observations:

1) The paved path appears to be the Harbour Lead.

2) Not sure the safety police are going to allow no fence at the shipping channel

3) I'll have to see the species list, but based on the renders, the plan is dominated by non-native trees.

Certainly nothing native has that columnar form; Trembling Aspen and Balsam Poplar, both of which would be appropriate to a beach setting are pretty straight, but that is not them.

That also looks like weeping willow to me; where the native choice would be sandbar willow.

*****

Overall, I like the design ethos................but would prefer to see native species used more widely.

I'm happy to support the fence-free front, I just can't imaging Parks going for that.........

Toe guard or low fencing along the lines of what's been done over at Sugar Beach would be fine:

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(Raysonho via Wikipedia)

AoD
 
There aren't any fences beside the Turning Basin along that strip of green space on the south side of Commissioners. I don't see my they would put up anything more than the toe guards AoD is referring to.
 
Some other rendering views from Claude Cormier's website:



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Some other rendering views from Claude Cormier's website:



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Thanks! I wonder what kind of material are they envisioning for the pathways. Hopefully crushed black/dark grey granite.

Presentation from the Jan WT DRP:


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(CreateTO/CC+A/gh3)

Asphalt pathways. Too bad.

AoD
 
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I think this is a lovely design, and I'm very happy to see the project itself, but I am wondering what is driving the prioritisation of this for funding over other as-yet unfunded Portlands public realm parcels, namely (and most importantly) the portion of Promontory Park that is not covered by the existing flood remediation project budget (I say most important because it's the most prominent part of the renaturalized Portlands area as viewed from the main harbour and because it's going to be a bit random to have that large, unfinished space right beside a beautiful new park) and the "destination playground" within that same project.

Perhaps there's a good reason, but I'd be interested to know it.
 
Wrong park in the wrong place imo. CC is an amazing firm and produce incredible work so kudos to them here but...

It's not going to be a good experience when you're choking on limestone particulate. You've got 3 very dusty cement/aggregate plants surrounding this park. In the summer that stone/cement dust is going to fly all over the beach with a bit of wind. The area was marketted and developed as the Cement/Concrete fabrication area by Ports Toronto. And now we want to invite the public down to this park to this dusty place to linger on a beach?

The vista is incredible, don't get me wrong. but the park's intended uses just don't match the surrounding intended uses.

and as many others have said, what about the harbour lead? what about finishing Promontory Park North first?

We can walk and chew bubble gum and I'm happy to see WT do that but maybe this is misplaced effort...
 
A sun tanning beach with no access to the lake or a water feature to cool off in? Sounds kind of brutal too me, Even Sugar Beach has a small water fountain for kids and adults to cool off in. That seems rather short sighted with the hotter summers we are going to be getting.

I was thinking the same thing. The plan looks great, but this is a major flaw that needs to be addressed. As you mentioned, Sugar Beach and H2O Park, both of which have beaches without lake access, at least have some sort of water feature. I don't see the point of this beach if people using it getting all sweaty in the heat can't even cool off. Wouldn't it be common sense to to include something to mitigate that?
 
Spoke to someone on one of the teams that bid; was told that the reason you see the path where you do (Harbour Lead Alignment) was that preserving the ROW was a requirement in the bid.

That also may (or may not) explain the use of asphalt, since at the time of design it may have been unclear if this would need to come out in favour of live track.
 
PS, I don't know if the Bid List for this is public at the moment..............

But a suggestion might be to look and then see if you can't get permission to post some of designs that didn't win.

I might have seen one......cough..........a very different approach to the site.

But I can't be the one to ask.
 
Thanks! I wonder what kind of material are they envisioning for the pathways. Hopefully crushed black/dark grey granite.

Asphalt pathways. Too bad.

AoD
I mean are you really surprised? Honestly I don't blame them given that this is sort of an out of the way location, Not sure if it really justifies granite.

It would be nice though to see some pavers to accent key spaces - perhaps the central plaza, where the pathways meet the street, or to line the edges of the pathways.
 

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