Northern Light

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This is massive.

5 new buildings, up to 55s, squeezed in on the existing footprint.

Worth noting, this site, very controversially got approval for 2 infill towers many years ago, including one on the site of the POPS/public square at the corner. That proposal was never acted upon except for demolishing a modest office building on the property.

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Render looking from the north-west to the south-east, (of course the lands in the foreground aren't vacant and on the right hand side is the Lynx Condo at 31s, to the south is the 6 Dawes proposal, and the GO Stn.

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Context below, with a couple of notes:

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1) This collective block (Main to Dawes, Railway to Danforth) will rival St. Jamestown for densest in the City.

2) Anyone notice the lack of parkland in the above? The Canadian Tire Parking lot is the only land with out an application in this super-block and all that's proposed to date, is that tiny little park over by Dawes.
That is absolutely unacceptable. Somewhere here, we need to see a 1 hectare+ Park

3) The midrise shown as proposed at Dawes/Danforth does not actually have an application filed that I know of; if it does, we've missed it.

Ok, out of room here, more renders/material below, in next post.
 

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Ok, so I mentioned in the 6 Dawes thread that one of my concerns is that approving such a project like that would not be a one off and rapidly Danforth would start to transform away from what gives it so much charm.

In one sense a proposal like this is at least a partial realization of those fears, however if any site were to get height along Danforth, I'm ok with it here. This site already has existing tall buildings, those proposal is high quality, and most importantly the ground level here is great.

To me this will benefit the overall urban fabric thanks to the top notch design. I wouldn't mind a little shorter, but having one building, of such a high quality, stand out alone on Danforth, could definitely make for an even more unique urban environment. I would not want to see this type of intensification spread throughout the street though.
 
To me this will benefit the overall urban fabric thanks to the top notch design.

Let's see what the final product looks like - extreme value engineering has a way of killing any urban fabric and I'm not familiar with this developer. I agree, if is close to the conceptualized form, it is beneficial.
 
This seems to be a massive overdevelopment what was already a dense site, and considering the approvals to the south and east. That there are transit options does not mitigate the need to add employment and civic amenity locally.

I understand the Main Street Community Centre gets demolished if this proceeds - where will a replacement go since the answer is no longer “6 Dawes”?
 
I understand the Main Street Community Centre gets demolished if this proceeds - where will a replacement go since the answer is no longer “6 Dawes”?

The City says they are committed to a replacement facility in the Community, but no site has yet been publicly identified.
 
Transit is an amenity. It's not a lifestyle. What sort of communities are we building when transit is the only rationale for throwing community planning out the window? An updated or new community centre is not going to bring balance to overly dense vertical subdivisions. The separation between the tallest tower and one of the existing slabs is okay for an amenity rich downtown. Here it's staging Main Square to remain a poorer super dense block within a low density middle class neighbourhood.
 
interesting design idea... it's both futuristic and retro at the same time. the arch motif could have easily been something you would have seen in the 1970's. and they used brick on the lower portions of the new towers to transition from the existing buildings to the sleek upper portions of the new towers. Main and Danforth now enters the 21st century...
 
1) This collective block (Main to Dawes, Railway to Danforth) will rival St. Jamestown for densest in the City.
It is amusing that the Block Context Plan doesn't include the Metrolinx site that is being marketed as a development site.

One might argue that the city should come in and acquire it for a park site, but they'd be paying a substantial premium for it.
 
It is amusing that the Block Context Plan doesn't include the Metrolinx site that is being marketed as a development site.

One might argue that the city should come in and acquire it for a park site, but they'd be paying a substantial premium for it.
wasnt that TOD above danforth cancelled by the developer?
 
So this one, along with all of the other outstanding applications on the north side of Danforth, from Main to Dawes is before the Toronto Design Review Panel today.

They're all being presented together in order to let the panel have an understanding of how they relate to one another.

This will be ongoing through much of the day.

But the first thing I've managed to glean is that the Main Square proposal is being reworked as we speak, with a resubmission's pending.

Not clear yet on how many of City staff's preferences/comments will be addressed, but they've asked for some large changes.

Most notably, they want a park where the POPs/Public Square is today at the corner of Main/Danforth, instead of the building.

This is a slide from Urban Design illustrating their site organization preference:

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Here's a side by side that tries to illustrate where UD would like to reduce car access (shown in red)

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Other interesting notes:

The applicant's proposal, renders notwithstanding, apparently omitted street trees on the majority of Main/Danforth due to utility conflicts. The City wants a larger setback so that the trees can supported ( I 100% back that idea)

Also, there is currently a ramp to GO Danforth station from Main Street that partially crosses the applicant's lands, they want to replace the ramp with stairs. I'm going to flag that one to @smably in light of discussions in another thread. The City obviously has accessibility concerns. Here, I would oppose the ramp being removed in favour of stairs, even if an elevator were added, which I assume is proposed, there are capacity constraints and concerns with what happens when that one elevator isn't working.
On the Community Recreation Centre, which is being demolished as part of this proposal, there is no replacement site yet decided on.

****

I'll sort out the various developments and cross post as appropriate later. For now, I want to touch on the two Canadian Tire related sites. UD is pushing for a much different vision and has proposed shifting the park to Danforth:

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I fail to understand why it would be desirable to have 2 really small parks fronting Danforth (this one and Main Square) only a block apart, both of which will get limited sun with towers to their south.

*****

The block plan has some recommendable features. the orange next to the park is small-scale retail. Still, this is not how I would do this.

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Staff Questions for panel consideration:


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I'll stop here for the moment.
 

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