Some units in the basement are definitely smaller than 350 sq. ft.; the "for rent" sign on one of them indicated that it was 250 sq. ft. And that is unfinished, of course. And they are all glass-enclosed with swing doors, as if they were street-level storefronts.

I looked at the video... it is very deceitful.
 
I don't know how much weight to put to this rumour, but I was talking to someone who works for a Canyon Creek over the weekend, and he said that it was decided NOT to put a Canyon Creek into Aura, and that instead they would be going with another concept. The Alice Fazooli's would still be going in as planned.

The other restaurant under that corporate umbrella is Jack Astors, but Aura is too close to Yonge and Dundas for that. So if indeed this is true, it should be interesting to see what goes into the corner spot.
 
BradInToronto said:
I don't know how much weight to put to this rumour, but I was talking to someone who works for a Canyon Creek over the weekend, and he said that it was decided NOT to put a Canyon Creek into Aura, and that instead they would be going with another concept. The Alice Fazooli's would still be going in as planned.

The other restaurant under that corporate umbrella is Jack Astors, but Aura is too close to Yonge and Dundas for that. So if indeed this is true, it should be interesting to see what goes into the corner spot.
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They also own the Loose Moose, so it could be another of those.
 
There are a couple of pubs, but it's pretty much deadsville north of Gerrard at night now because there's little to attract people north of there
 
Went through the basement for the first time today. Two signs for hair salons, one nail salon, and a dry cleaners. And it looks like most of the food court is going to be "asian" (signs for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese places). What might save the basement is that as the unit owners begin to realize their losses they might drop the rents to a point where small specialty retail might jump in. I noticed a couple units have been combined as well, so perhaps over time we might see some units down there large enough to attract a variety of retailers?
 
I think everyone here is jumping the gun... again! Patience guys! Give it a minute!
 
Someone mentioned the proximity to College Park and Eaton Centre; is it possible that they are doing this on the cheap because they don't expect their retail to last and don't want to invest too much?
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
There are a couple of pubs, but it's pretty much deadsville north of Gerrard at night now because there's little to attract people north of there
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Depends what you mean by north of Gerrard. Bar Volo is great, although it looks like it may be evicted for a condo.
 
Wrenkin said:
Depends what you mean by north of Gerrard. Bar Volo is great, although it looks like it may be evicted for a condo.
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North of Gerrard on Yonge Street, for decades a vibrant stretch by day and night from Queen to Bloor St. It's great during the day now but not much happens at night.
 
Volo! I went every Monday for years - cheap pints night. But latterly you could barely get in the door, letalone find a table. Truly, nobody goes there anymore - it's too crowded.
 
Saw this in person ... yes its dreary but we're all exaggerating a little at this point.

Firstly regarding the bed bath and beyond ... in no way is that a "home design" store ... I've been to a couple of their other urban locations and Toronto's looks identical ... but I'll tell you something its huge ! Supposedly just a little bit smaller then the one in NYC ... I reckon it'll do really well, though yes I find it a bit pricey.

Again I have a feeling above the ground floor will do well.

Now the renderings are actually fairly close to the finished product, less the fancy lighting features, if they scrap that, it'll detract a lot from this project, if they add it it could add enough to set it apart.

The worst feature throughout is actually the ceilings, the tile'd drop down look is terrible, I'd rather unfinished concrete.

Hard to judge downstairs, I don't really see how it will be successful but add lighting features / store signs, it'll look a lot better then it does today. But I'd say it looks a bit better in person then the photos do it justice, for example the spandrel (on the retail units) looks very grey in the pictures, its not quite that bad in person.
 
Ok, so it's not 'pretty' and cool to look at. So what? There is more to urbanism than hipster chic, and believe it or not although the presence of mundane shops like this may not make Yonge very interesting to tourists it does make the inner city just slightly more 'real' and liveable... 'urban', in other words, which is a good thing. I may be overstating the case a little but to some degree the presence of stores like Marshalls, Crappy Tire and BBB actually make the city more diverse, not less, providing greater rationale for average people to live and shop downtown rather than fleeing by car to the suburbs whenever they need something other than stupid expensive clothes or overblown imported European furniture, none of which is in any short supply in the city!
 
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