1974-ish, at left

I’m doing some work on procurement these days. Stay tuned…

This has been quite the evolution from the original scheme:

Responding to a couple of comments about my piece: The key points here are accsss and proximity. Access to the Island Park via the airport site is vastly more convenient and pleasant than the Ward’s Island alternative. The western gap, where the airport ferry lands, is a mile from the CN...

This gets demolished within 20 years, tops.

The nicest thing in this interior is that elevator bank clad in travertine. They’re covering it up with the “trellis” and a giant display screen? The reminds me of all the 1960s office buildings that got “updates” in 1987

As far as we know, this project is still missing more than 80% of its budget. Don’t get too attached to this design.

This is weirdo semantics. The pattern is clear: the only blocks in this general area that have population growth post-1972 are the ones where new apartment buildings were added. So if you include Yorkville, which is an odd definition, you get an opposite result. The house areas have shrunk by a...

Extraordinarily, spectacularly ugly. It’s impressive, in a way.

It’s not just that it “hasn’t grown” - it has shrunk dramatically and continues to shrink. The annex is really two neighborhoods: an expanse of increasingly empty, expensive houses, and small pockets of apartments where the majority of the people live.

While this is true to a point, density in Toronto is strongly correlated with apartment buildings. In the Annex, a handful of blocks with towers has the bulk of the density. And overall the neighbourhood is far less dense than Yonge-Bloor. Density 2016: The Annex also has fewer people than...

@christiesplits: 19.4ha. 800,000sm. 9000 homes. 4FSI gross and 450 dph. Next to 20ha of parkland and open space.

Thanks all for the attention to my piece last week. I’ll make a few points and duck out. 1. Villiers is not close to the densest big project in Toronto. Ignore the 20ha river parks, and it is 450 dwellings per ha and 4 FSI gross. Most if not all of the big private masterplans in Toronto exceed...

Corrections: that’s not how the sourcing in the story is worded, and it is written by Shane Dingman.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-developer-proposes-demolition-of-former-toronto-star-office-building/