College Park said:
The problems with any site relocation is truck parking for loading, car parking (because carrying a 24 is awful work for those older than 20) and neighbourhood aversion to the bottle-return entrepreneurs. LCBO with its' smaller formats is just more sensible in dense areas.
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A bit off topic, but it'd be smart for The Beer Store to expand on their express concept. The one-story brick and mortar + parking lot concept certainly doesn't work one block away from one of our busiest streets and subway lines. I'm happy to see Church Street densify.
 
devjohnson said:
A bit off topic, but it'd be smart for The Beer Store to expand on their express concept. The one-story brick and mortar + parking lot concept certainly doesn't work one block away from one of our busiest streets and subway lines. I'm happy to see Church Street densify.
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The express concept would be a major improvement. Grab and go. We're adults, we should be allowed to browse the store and pick up our own case of beer. The stores with the ordering terminals, like a fast food joint, are a joke. I I lost count how many times they sent the wrong case of beer out on the conveyor belt. Everything about the Beer Store sucks. The ugly stores, the service , the selection. As long as they got Ontario's beer monopoly, nothing will ever change.
 
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Tewder said:
Please don't take this as height-phobic but is 45 stories a bit much for this site? I only have a vague image of the location in my mind but I recall the surroundings as being fairly low rise... I would think something mid rise at best would be appropriate, no?
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the surroundings being fairly low rise is the problem (it is those which should be midrise), not the tower.
If the first tower were not constructed in downtown Toronto, we could always argue that "it is too high for the low rise surroundings". It is always one tower setting the precedent and then others follow.
 
I doubt you would find many people would want to turn this stretch of Church into a long line of 40-storey towers. That's happening a block or so north of here and a few blocks south of here again, but most familiar the village will want to retain a village feel in the blocks close to Wellesley.

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interchange42 said:
most familiar the village will want to retain a village feel in the blocks close to Wellesley.

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But nothing is less "village" than the suburban strip mall mentality of the Beer Store.

If what's between the sidewalk and the front door of a retail establishment is a parking lot, then it's time to rethink.

The city should either be expropriating the land from this mostly foreign owned private company for better use...or taxing the living hell out of them...or forcing them to redevelop their land to conform to sound urban planning concepts. (assuming the private monopoly owns the land).
 
It might seem like a low density area when walking, but the view all around is of towers.

I also don't think the retail plaza on the West side of Church North of Wellesley (Beer Store neighbour) is going to resist this tide. Neither of these buildings are specimens - they're utilitarian - and I'd be happy to see good new buildings go up. i vote for faux Victorian town home frontages *wink*
 
Don't get me wrong, the Beer Store should go, and Progress Place is nothing gorgeous either, I just think 40 storeys would be way over-doing it in this location.

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When I think of the village, I think of a hodge-podge of building types...everything from victorians to deco era walk ups to 50's/60's apts to new condo towers. And to be honest, it seems to work. It evolves with the city. This is the part of town that most reminds me of NYC.

But I think I like it best on the east-west side streets, as the setbacks & mature tree cover tends to be the moderating factor. This doesn't work so well on Church, so obviously there would have to be a 3-story max frontage on Church and a setback for any tower.
 
An "avenues" type development strikes me as more appropriate here. Or something along the lines of the Alexis' massing at Alexander. Still, being a realist I can certainly see them trying for 40+ and getting something around 30.
 
JasonParis said:
An "avenues" type development strikes me as more appropriate here. Or something along the lines of the Alexis' massing at Alexander. Still, being a realist I can certainly see them trying for 40+ and getting something around 30.
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I thought the "avenue" type development means streets entirely consisting of midrises (say 6 to 12s), not a few midrises and 90% 2 stories?
 
Talked to an employee today to try and glean some info and although I didn't get a timeline, he told me the Beer Store would go into the ground floor of the new condo and it would be closed for awhile during construction.
 
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