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I have no problem with this as a development for what it is. It is a mild improvement over a suburban mall that wasn't working. But I believe it's fate is essentially sealed because of its monolithic ownership. What happens with fine-grained, multi-owned sections of town is that as their fortunes change, they can adapt to the changes in subtle ways. So parts of Queen Street that were once quite prosperous can end up housing junk and electrical repair shops for a while, and then maybe some interesting shops open, or galleries, or a local bar opens that is quite popular and the neighbourhood shifts and creaks into some new phase of its life. Some of the older structures will have been lost, but some new and interesting buildings will replace them (think Cube on College) and the result is an ever-changing, continually-interesting neighbourhood that is flexible enough to withstand change.

A monolithic development like this has very little capacity to change. I would imagine the most likely outcome if you think forward to, say, 2029, when lots of lifestyle centres with more popular stores and better architectecture and features have opened, that the overall Don Mills centre will become dated. Because it's owned monolithically, any cost-benefit analysis of the project will always be assessed as a whole. It won't matter than there's one really popular and thriving Honduran restaurant in the former Banana Republic, the centre will be assessed on its merits as a whole. I imagine it will all be ripped down some day and replaced with something else.

Again, I don't really have a problem with this, and I believe that corporately owned centres, too, are part of our urban fabric. but it does mean that the centre is relatively uninteresting as a part of our urban conglomeration, and ought not be confused with small scale, private ownership of multiple little properties, which is where you get the urban feeling. And the ability of this centre to spread and grow and affect the surrounding area is, in my view, quite limited. Above all, the future ability of this thing to grow and change into something more surprising and interesting is very limited.
 
Archivist said:
I have no problem with this as a development for what it is. It is a mild improvement over a suburban mall that wasn't working. But I believe it's fate is essentially sealed because of its monolithic ownership. What happens with fine-grained, multi-owned sections of town is that as their fortunes change, they can adapt to the changes in subtle ways. So parts of Queen Street that were once quite prosperous can end up housing junk and electrical repair shops for a while, and then maybe some interesting shops open, or galleries, or a local bar opens that is quite popular and the neighbourhood shifts and creaks into some new phase of its life. Some of the older structures will have been lost, but some new and interesting buildings will replace them (think Cube on College) and the result is an ever-changing, continually-interesting neighbourhood that is flexible enough to withstand change.

A monolithic development like this has very little capacity to change. I would imagine the most likely outcome if you think forward to, say, 2029, when lots of lifestyle centres with more popular stores and better architectecture and features have opened, that the overall Don Mills centre will become dated. Because it's owned monolithically, any cost-benefit analysis of the project will always be assessed as a whole. It won't matter than there's one really popular and thriving Honduran restaurant in the former Banana Republic, the centre will be assessed on its merits as a whole. I imagine it will all be ripped down some day and replaced with something else.

Again, I don't really have a problem with this, and I believe that corporately owned centres, too, are part of our urban fabric. but it does mean that the centre is relatively uninteresting as a part of our urban conglomeration, and ought not be confused with small scale, private ownership of multiple little properties, which is where you get the urban feeling. And the ability of this centre to spread and grow and affect the surrounding area is, in my view, quite limited. Above all, the future ability of this thing to grow and change into something more surprising and interesting is very limited.
Click to expand...

I would disagree with your argument against monolithic ownership. Such ownership provides enourmous benefits, from standardized shopping hours to marketing to shared maintenance. Even the selection of tenants is done on the basis of its net benefit to the area.

No you won't see a head shop, tatto parlour, dollar store or low rent sex shop here. Such businesses would tend to accelerate an area's decline.

And when this model no longer works, the area will be bull dozed and something new will be constructed. Try to do that with multiple property owners.

Toronto Life Square-Dundas Square demonstrated the difficulty involved.
 
Nothing is forever - Cadillac Fairview ( it divested itself of residential rental properties, which subsequently adopted a variety of ownership models, in the early '80s ) could sell off some of the property if it suited the requirements of their owner, Teachers'. Heck, Teachers' could sell off Cadillac Fairview if they wanted.
 
Art, I don't think we are actually disagreeing, since I do agree with your points. But my larger point is that the monolithic and inflexible ownership structure limits the ability of the centre to adjust to its surroundings and to accommodate itself to new uses. My greater point is that the centre will always be dull and corporate, sharing more characteristics of a mall than with any part of Queen Street. Again, I have no particular problem with that, but from a purely personal point of view it won't be a place I'll be hanging out in much.
 
Archivist said:
I have no problem with this as a development for what it is. It is a mild improvement over a suburban mall that wasn't working. But I believe it's fate is essentially sealed because of its monolithic ownership. What happens with fine-grained, multi-owned sections of town is that as their fortunes change, they can adapt to the changes in subtle ways. So parts of Queen Street that were once quite prosperous can end up housing junk and electrical repair shops for a while, and then maybe some interesting shops open, or galleries, or a local bar opens that is quite popular and the neighbourhood shifts and creaks into some new phase of its life. Some of the older structures will have been lost, but some new and interesting buildings will replace them (think Cube on College) and the result is an ever-changing, continually-interesting neighbourhood that is flexible enough to withstand change.

A monolithic development like this has very little capacity to change. I would imagine the most likely outcome if you think forward to, say, 2029, when lots of lifestyle centres with more popular stores and better architectecture and features have opened, that the overall Don Mills centre will become dated. Because it's owned monolithically, any cost-benefit analysis of the project will always be assessed as a whole. It won't matter than there's one really popular and thriving Honduran restaurant in the former Banana Republic, the centre will be assessed on its merits as a whole. I imagine it will all be ripped down some day and replaced with something else.

Again, I don't really have a problem with this, and I believe that corporately owned centres, too, are part of our urban fabric. but it does mean that the centre is relatively uninteresting as a part of our urban conglomeration, and ought not be confused with small scale, private ownership of multiple little properties, which is where you get the urban feeling. And the ability of this centre to spread and grow and affect the surrounding area is, in my view, quite limited. Above all, the future ability of this thing to grow and change into something more surprising and interesting is very limited.
Click to expand...

Wow, archivist, that is the most straightforward explanation of how corporate interests inadvertently lead to urban sterility that I've ever read.
 
...and it'll probably wind up like similar arrays elsewhere, where the nucleus is "corporate", and the satellites are "indy" (cf. Vaughan Mills)
 
Was driven through it today, slowly. Most of the stores are for the bright eyed and bushy tailed younger set, but it was fairly busy. I wonder if the seniors who live in that huge compond at the north west corner of Don Mills and Lawrence are quietly plotting an invasion to reclaim their turf? They're quite a large demographic too, but I can't see what they'd find to buy there, other than Bombay Sapphire Gin in the LCBO.
 
There is an RBC and a TD Bank...

;)


However, the RBC likley don't have a teller in their banks half the time, cheap bastards...
 
I think the hard fact is that many "seniors" are not heavy purchasers of most of life's goods. They like to stop in to sit and drink coffee and meet friends, not that that's a bad thing at all. But they don't tend to spend nearly as much as the "bushy tailed younger set" Shocker refers to, particularly thiose with children, or those, especially female, who are in the white collar work force and constantly looking for new clothing.

The other consideration which hasn't been mentioned here much is the cost of operating outdoor facilities as opposed to indoor malls. Common area charges, which are of course passed through ("upcharged") to tenants, are very significant in enclosed malls. Tenants are increasingly unwilling to pay them, and it's a major reason for the current lack of enthusiasm for building more malls.

When Vaughan Mills opened, the point was made that it was the first major new enclosed mall to be built in Ontario in 14 years, and I don't know of any more that are on the drawing boards. On the contrary, a number of older malls are "failed", and are being converted to different formats (eg., Centre Mall in Hamilton), or are simply scheduled for demolition and complete site redevelopment (Honeydale in Etobicoke, and several others).
 
In addition to Crawley New Town and the Vancouver Shopping Centre in King's Lynn, the other British equivalent this place reminds me of is Bicester Village - part of a chain of similar retail "villages" all over Europe run by Value Retail.

http://www.valueretail.com/
 
Certain kinds of traditionally mall-friendly offices that the surrounding community would be drawn to might make sense - dentists, doctors, opticians, that sort of thing.
 
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