^With the way facendectomy is consistently done in this city, I honestly dont even think it's worth it.

If we had stronger preservation laws that required more than just keeping a facade, then I would agree with you.
You have to look at the context. Sometimes, there's nothing more that's worth preserving than a facade. Other times, preserving the facade is too little. These commercial buildings' interiors have most likely been renovated dozens of times. There may not be any heritage features left beyond the facades.
I don't know about doing justice for heritage preservation, but at least those facadectomies often result in a more pedestrian friendly environment than otherwise, which is a good trade-off to me.
 
I don't know about doing justice for heritage preservation, but at least those facadectomies often result in a more pedestrian friendly environment than otherwise, which is a good trade-off to me.

I agree. That was actually the point of my earlier comment, namely that "facade preservation would force them to create a finer grained street level than just a long wall of glass."

If these aren't heritage properties, so be it. But the quality of the end result would be better with preservation I think.
 
I don't know about doing justice for heritage preservation, but at least those facadectomies often result in a more pedestrian friendly environment than otherwise, which is a good trade-off to me.

I agree. That was actually the point of my earlier comment, namely that "facade preservation would force them to create a finer grained street level than just a long wall of glass."

If these aren't heritage properties, so be it. But the quality of the end result would be better with preservation I think.
While in certain cases I could definitely agree with those statements, there are various cases we've seen throughout the city where it just allows for lazy streetwall integrations.

For example, one that comes to mind is the ongoing 160 Front project which is a prime example of just lazy historical preservation. There you had a stunning warehouse style building where interesting things could have been done to integrate it into the overall development (ie: having a cantilever over it). However instead of that looking into that, all we're getting is a lazy hack facendecomy job.

On the other hand, you have projects such as Queen-Richmond Centre where the historical interegration is second to none, because the developer actually used some imagination and did more than just a lazy facendectomy job.
 
Warehouse facade preservation is somewhat different, though, because warehouses tend to be bigger structures than Victorian main street commercial buildings. There's less of a fine grain to begin with.

Also, with regard to heritage warehouse preservation, one wonders if it's enough to preserve just the facade when the interiors with exposed wood columns and brick walls often seem just as significant as the exterior facades.
 
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Many of the building facades you see on this stretch are actually themselves grafted onto the original residential houses that lined the street. Unfortunately many of these properties are dubious shanty creations and aren’t really worth retaining. What is worth retaining are at least some of the human-scale lot widths; however, a mixture of narrow and wide spaces allows for a more diverse mix of potential uses in the neighbourhood.
 
That street level is really bad urbanism for this location. The rest of the building is quite nice, but the part that matters most is a blank glass wall that just begs the pedestrian to cross the street and walk elsewhere. Toronto needs some sort or protection for fine grain lot sizes. Appropriate density could easily be achieved with a lot by lot approach. I guess this would be improved if they continued the red brick down to street level?
 
The same folks who brought us Platform Condos over at Greenwood & Danforth...

 
The same folks who brought us Platform Condos over at Greenwood & Danforth...

Can't wait for the great bloor st spandral wall 😬
 

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