Shows how utterly useless "heritage designation" is in this city.
 
I couldn't be happier that I took the time to explore the building before it completely shut down. It really was an amazing, unique structure emblematic of its time. There's no reason why it couldn't have been successful: look at the Westin Prince just down the road. It was clearly allowed to deteriorate, though, beyond the point-of-no-return for a structure of that style. Had it been Victorian, it would have payed to restore. There still isn't enough of a market for modernism in Toronto, I don't think, to make such a restoration profitable, no matter how many neo-Modernist Clewes condos go up.

The "300 jobs" argument is patently ridiculous. The Lexus dealership is not a factory producing for international consumption which can locate wherever land is easiest to obtain. The dealership would clearly have opened up elsewhere in Toronto, likely in Don Mills, and all those jobs would have resulted in the elimination of a parking lot or strip mall instead of a landmark.

By the way, where's Issy Sharp in all this? Doesn't he care about the first jewel in his now-great empire being destroyed? I suppose he would be a little embarrassed about having let it run down so far.
 
I'm going to open a whorehouse. I'm sure the city won't mind. I'm creating over a hundred jobs!

Maybe i'll just buy the hummingbird centre and rip it up for a giant penis.
 
To late - the board has already had Liebeskind design it.
 
The tower is staying, btw.
Click to expand...

That's the worst (and later) part of it. So that's no compensation.

It'd be like if they tore down all of the ROM but the 80s Kinoshita parts...
 
Doubtful on the condo front, me thinks.

With all this angst over the demolition, what's the consensus as to what should have been done? If the building no longer has a use, or the hotel was no longer a financially sustainable business, what's left to do but knock it over and put up something in its place that does work?
 
The Bishop's Block was an abandoned hulk for at least a quarter century...
 
Exactly. What are they going to use the tower for?
Click to expand...

A nursing home or retirement home (not sure which) is the plan.

Makes lots of sense next to a car dealership.
 
Courtesy: The Toronto Sun

Article

Inn on the Park is history
'Landmark building' demolished
By ZEN RURYK, CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Some of the key parts of the Inn on the Park are being saved despite the demolition of the 1960s-era piece of modernist architecture, Councillor Cliff Jenkins says.

Demolition of the Eglinton Ave. E. hotel started Monday -- one day before North York community council was to consider an application to preserve the building as a heritage landmark.

Plans call for the construction of a Lexus dealership, a seniors home, retail shops and a restaurant on the site.

KEY ELEMENTS SAVED

Jenkins said yesterday that city bureaucrats worked for up to a year on an agreement to ensure Rowntree Motors, which purchased the building several years ago, saved key elements of the structure.

A courtyard, a ballroom, a tower and some shops are being incorporated into the new development, he said.

"The other key thing that is going to be retained is the architectural elements of the front of the buildings," said Jenkins, the area's councillor.

"You're losing a landmark building," said Robert Saunders, chairman of the Toronto Preservation Board, which was seeking to save the hotel.

CELEBRITIES

A report from the board says the Inn on the Park is significant as the only surviving example of the two Four Seasons Hotels built in the city by prominent early modernist architect Peter Dickinson.

"It deteriorated pretty badly in the last few years, but at the beginning, and in the '60s, it was an excellent hotel," Saunders said. "A lot of celebrities stayed at the Inn on the Park."

The report says its "significant heritage attributes" include its original white-painted brick, cedar woodwork, glass and fieldstone.
 
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