DSC
Superstar
There are some photos etc in the hospital's regular community involvement publication at http://www.bridgepointhealth.ca/changingthelandscape
Great photos! Remind me, what is that old clubhouse going to be used for now?
I'm not thrilled to see a slab tower, but it is a hospital, and excepting Princess Margaret, hospital architecture is usually directly reflective of its institutional function. Hopefully the other buildings that go up in this block break up the monolith feel.
The old clubhouse will remain a clubhouse, mainly seniors' events, I believe.
What other buildings in this block? This is it, with the old jail being converted to admin use, the new jail being torn down, and the old hospital torn down. The rest is to be parks and bike paths, at least for now.
According to the site development plan I read a couple years ago, the plan is to divide the area into a more traditional block format, with sites available for development. The Riverdale hospital site development is (or was) to be financed in part by land sales, which makes absolute sense. There is a lot of "empty" space in that area, and since it borders of the fabulous Riverdale park already, I doubt this land would be allocated to more permanent parkland.
http://www.bridgepointhealth.ca/uploads/About Us/pdfs 2010/Site Plan Feb 2010.pdf
There are five blocks of land where they plan future development. Since there are no announced plans, I'm speculating that those developments are far into the future. (Blocks B & D, in particular, need destruction before construction, as that's the old hospital and Don Jail.) However, given that they renovated the building to act as the site for the new family health practice, I'm betting the midrise on Broadview (Block C on the map) is left 'as is' for quite a while. A good use of that part of the site, IMHO.
Be that as it may, the bike path along the west side of the site and the park on Gerrard (currently a temporary parking lot) will be huge improvements all by themselves.
A tastefully rehabbed half-round, perhaps ideally?
A tastefully rehabbed half-round, perhaps ideally?