[Filip]

What an unfortunate area, and a pastiche of dated architectural styles.

However, thanks for the tour, interesting to see something so desolate become at least something.

 

[ganjavih]

There are little glimpses of hope here and there. At the same time, there are a lot of missed opportunities. It'll be interesting to see if a semi-urban environment can be created in the next ten years.

And despite the goofy gargoyles on One Park Tower, it appears to be a decent-looking, well-proportioned building from a distance. Much better than the horrible Capital Towers.

 

[doady]

If MCC turns out to be a failure I will blame One Park Tower because it looks so dumb. And it is not even properly aligned with the north-south pedestrian walkway.

 

[Transportfan]

MCC isn't going to become the Annex, but then again, NYCC isn't either...

Maybe not, but at least you won't see this tower-in-the-park type stuff there:

I know, there may be street in Paris that has a parklike setup along it, but Paris has a lot of thouroughfares at its disposal. MCC doesn't, and now it will never have a main drag with buildings close to the sidewalk.

That being said, this certainly looks like a classic streetscape.

 

[roch5220]

Those townhomes @MCC look great!

sidenote - Hasty Market, please get better signage, the ugly yellow just doesn't do it

 

[junctionist]

The buildings definitely constitute steps in the right direction theoretically, but the inclination to mimic the styles of buildings of great urban centres gives this city centre such a "Disney" look to it. North York isn't innocent of this either with its art deco towers standing by one of the busiest highways in the world.

 

[taal]

The difference is NYCC has a continuous street scape Between Sheppard Ave and Finch ... more over ... it's pretty heavily traveled, especially in the summer. On top of this, it's continuing to develop, the Pulse development is adding to it quite nicely between NYCC and finch. I think the main reason for the heavy pedestrian activity is the mix of urban work area's along Yonge + a very Asian geared street, especially from NYCC to Finch. On top of this, the stretch between NYCC and Sheppard is just filled with restaurants ... albeit none very good ... I think some people really don't realize how busy this section of Yonge is in the summer ... even in the winter. I promise I'll take pictures next summer to make my point even clearer.
One thing though, is it really fair to compare NYCC to MCC? NYCC is one street (Yonge) MCC is more of your classic city centers. So all developments in NYCC were geared to making this ONE street very walkable and attract others from different parts of the city ... the Asian theme is man reason for this.

If MCC can eventually do something similar ... even on a smaller scale ... with one street ... It will be going a lot in the right direction.

 

[Hypnotoad]

The buildings definitely constitute steps in the right direction theoretically, but the inclination to mimic the styles of buildings of great urban centres gives this city centre such a "Disney" look to it. North York isn't innocent of this either with its art deco towers standing by one of the busiest highways in the world.

Perfectly said. As you said, in theory, the "intensification" of MCC is great. The result, however, has been too much too soon without time for the area to develop or gain its own identity. By copying other buildings (styles) the Disney feel of the area takes away from the attempt to obtain an urban identity. And as been mentioned in almost every other post, the horrible streetscapes lined with parkets, townhouses or poorly thought out setbacks further detracts from the accomplishments of the skyline.

Indeed, MCC has a skyline. (it is hard for me to accept this but it is true). It just doesn't work properly on the ground. There is a lot of land left to build this and improve transit is earmarked to arrive in the future. Will these measures help? Maybe. Probably. But for what it is worth, I love Citygate. That is a nice building.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

One thing though, is it really fair to compare NYCC to MCC? NYCC is one street (Yonge) MCC is more of your classic city centers. So all developments in NYCC were geared to making this ONE street very walkable and attract others from different parts of the city ... the Asian theme is man reason for this.

There is no Asian theme between Empress and Sheppard, which is the busier stretch (it's also the older, denser stretch and "downtown" North York while the area towards Finch is "uptown") because the street there is lined almost completely with office buildings or restaurants, and Mel Lastman Square, of course. But, as you say, this is all along one street - one block away, Doris and Beecroft are service roads lined with driveways and parkettes.

Mississauga's working with an area that's much larger, that's building on some greenfields rather than redeveloping individual sites within an established area, without a strip of relatively cohesive commercial buildings like Yonge, and with a mall. Strike one, two, three, and four? Maybe, maybe not...it really is too soon to tell.

 

[doady]

Since NYCC all along just one street, it will never have kind of side streets that MCC already has. The "classic" streetscapes shown in these photos are on minor streets like Living Arts Dr and Duke of York Blvd.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

And, the way things are going, MCC will never have a main street...

 

[taal]

There is no Asian theme between Empress and Sheppard, which is the busier stretch (it's also the older, denser stretch and "downtown" North York while the area towards Finch is "uptown") because the street there is lined almost completely with office buildings or restaurants, and Mel Lastman Square, of course. But, as you say, this is all along one street - one block away, Doris and Beecroft are service roads lined with driveways and parkettes.

Mississauga's working with an area that's much larger, that's building on some greenfields rather than redeveloping individual sites within an established area, without a strip of relatively cohesive commercial buildings like Yonge, and with a mall. Strike one, two, three, and four? Maybe, maybe not...it really is too soon to tell.

I would argue that the stretch from Empress (a little north of this) to Finch is at times busier the the stretch farther to the south ... at nite time in the winter esspically.

But both are pretty well traveled in summer.

Your right, although there a few side streets comming off Yonge with some retail it's mostly all about the one street.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

At 3am in the winter, maybe, but most of the time there's noticeably fewer people up there...this should change rapidly, though, with all the condos going in.

 

[Tuscani01]

There is still PLENTY of room to transform Hurontario into the main street that it is supposed to be. Since all the buildings built up until now have been set back quite a bit from the street, there is space that can and will eventually be redeveloped. The problem is there is so much open space in MCC at the moment that demand for these other spaces isnt so great.

I wouldn't write off MCC as a failure until we start seeing some infill. Only then will we be able to gauge whether it is a success or not. The Capital towers (whether you like the architecture or not) are a HUGE improvement for MCC and I cant wait to see the activity around the city hall/capital tower cluster this summer. Solstice looks like it will also be a huge bonus to MCC.

Doady: One Park's townhomes are lined up with the ones at the Capital Towers. Its one of the things I wanted to see during the walk... you just cant tell from the picture I took.

 

[grey]

Pedestrian Mew at the Capital Towers, looking south

This will confuse the hell out of Mississauga residents.

"Pe-des-trian? This road is too small for my car!"