Now AS+GG.

From a presentation at CTBUH:

https://bsky.app/profile/alexbozikovic.bsky.social/post/3m2nmcgf4qc2j
IMG_7381.jpeg
 
ADRM said:
Almost purely residential but with the bland, corporate soullessness of a purely office district -- fun!
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This! 100%

The proposal should be a flat no.

Not happening, no way, no how.

In turn, we should just cancel East Harbour Station entirely for the next while except for enabling works that are necessary w/the new Broadview underpass.

I mean the station as a proposal has been trashed beyond recognition, most of this latest iteration of development won't be ready until the late 2030s away..........there's no justification for a station w/o it.

Just stop.

Complete re-think here.

Also this:

AlvinofDiaspar said:
That strip of parkland by Lake Shore is kind of pointless - as if the city ceases to exist at that boundary. Like - why bother stepping the podium along the Lake Shore?

AoD
Click to expand...

Can someone please explain that bizarre massing by Lakeshore? That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

There are no quick fixes here, but lets get a starting point:

East Harbour rethink.png


Natural/Major Parks to MVVA
Masterplan to Allies
Small public spaces to CCxAA
Stern/Allies to design to 2-3 buildings that provide a heritage vibe linking to past industrial uses
But make the Lakeshore fronting stuff modern and different and give it to 3XN

But a preliminary reorg. above. Unmarked areas would be mostly conventional midrise, with public spaces.
 
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Northern Light said:
This! 100%

The proposal should be a flat no.

Not happening, no way, no how.

In turn, we should just cancel East Harbour Station entirely for the next while except for enabling works that are necessary w/the new Broadview underpass.

I mean the station is proposal has been trashed beyond recognition, most of this latest iteration of development won't be ready until the late 2030s away..........there's no justification for a station w/o it.

Just stop.

Complete re-think here.
Click to expand...
I'm in full agreement, this is a trashed up vision for a site. Actually I cant even call this a vision, it's visionless and uninspired.

I agree that East Harbour station should be deferred indefinitely, but that ship has long sailed. Actually due to our current premier who's just oh so infinite in his wisdom, I feel like he'll even double down and use the station as justification to grant CF their stupid request to convert the land so residential can go ahead.

We have to remember we're not dealing with a logical premier, IO and the city can and may be "opposed" at surface to the land designation change, but Doug Ford is the kind of person who would be all about it.

I'd be happy with Cadillac Fairview sitting on the land and bleeding money on it. It's not our fault they decided to make the decision to take it off of First Gulf's lap. Let them pay for that decision, not us.
 
Ugh. And they already demoed the only really interesting thing on site, the soap factory. I'd like to be more of a booster for this city, but it's tough when we're in this place where dev's cheapen and cut until there's nothing left but vapourware and a dearth of vision. (and I get it with socio economic factors at play but)
We invested billions in flood protections to get this area serviceable for a future neighbourhood, we can't just plan will nilly and put up neighbours reminiscent of City Place. My fear with these token office components is they could easily be nixed or made into office condos, not unlike what you see in the Hullmark Centre - though I'm sure this area would have more success down the line being more central and closer to Union/downtown.
 
GenerationLee said:
Ugh. And they already demoed the only really interesting thing on site, the soap factory. I'd like to be more of a booster for this city, but it's tough when we're in this place where dev's cheapen and cut until there's nothing left but vapourware and a dearth of vision. (and I get it with socio economic factors at play but)
We invested billions in flood protections to get this area serviceable for a future neighbourhood, we can't just plan will nilly and put up neighbours reminiscent of City Place. My fear with these token office components is they could easily be nixed or made into office condos, not unlike what you see in the Hullmark Centre - though I'm sure this area would have more success down the line being more central and closer to Union/downtown.
Click to expand...
My personal take is that we’re in a super bad period right now, because I think everyone from politicians to voters to the completely disinterested are being overwhelmed by everything in life, and that’s in general before you even get to folks just trying to keep up with capitalism.

So what we have is a dearth of imagination if not hope, not on a scale to move action. I look back on the Miller years when it seems there were a lot of young people being civically minded and engaged. Hell put that to the Obama years too-

But now it’s all about having to make a buck, no allegiances beyond sports teams, and a disenchantment with the systems meant to bring us together to do something special and lasting. We’re all in our phones, trying to side hustle to pay rent and have left building to the multi billionaires, who- if we’re lucky DON’T have a utopian idea for the future. Cuz ugh, have you seen what they really think about humanity? Eep.

Put up slop, nobody has a choice but to buy or rent- if the economy goes down the rich will get bailed out, cuz god forbid we punish these “builders of society”.

East Harbour is yet another brilliant opportunity to build a new community using emerging tech that weaves seamlessly into environmental protections. But political and economic forecasts will likely put it as an austere recession build, if that. The flood plain work will be done, and people will move into these buildings because it’s tied to major transit. Govt officials will show up to cut ribbons and backslap and Torontonians will still complain about crap transit and traffic (as if they aren’t part of it).

I know it’s a long shot but I’m transferring my optimism to the Innisfil Orb, or whatever it’s called.

(Also I will momentarily not go to look up that project for fear the cheapening has occurred there already. No spoilers)

Maybe we can have greater hope for the areas around GO stations outside the city, which seem moribund at best rn.
 
To add, while AS+GG are welcomed if not smexy architects here, I feel outside of 160 Front they’re brought in to render fantasy concepts and vapour proposals, making me wonder if CF is really serious about this…

…or are they just running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
 
Northern Light said:
This! 100%

The proposal should be a flat no.

Not happening, no way, no how.

In turn, we should just cancel East Harbour Station entirely for the next while except for enabling works that are necessary w/the new Broadview underpass.

I mean the station as a proposal has been trashed beyond recognition, most of this latest iteration of development won't be ready until the late 2030s away..........there's no justification for a station w/o it.

Just stop.

Complete re-think here.

Also this:



Can someone please explain that bizarre massing by Lakeshore? That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

There are no quick fixes here, but lets get a starting point:

View attachment 687125

Natural/Major Parks to MVVA
Masterplan to Allies
Small public spaces to CCxAA
Stern/Allies to design to 2-3 buildings that provide a heritage vibe linking to past industrial uses
But make the Lakeshore fronting stuff modern and different and give it to 3XN

But a preliminary reorg. above. Unmarked areas would be mostly conventional midrise, with public spaces.
Click to expand...

A little bit of info to go with this. The Flood protection landforms and the Coxwell Sewer bypass is in those green boxes and as great as it seems that they would be a great park there are limits to what is permitted to be put on the water side of the berms. Zero trees are allowed from what I recall and the path that looks shown is on the top of it. I think they could have designed it better to be able to be a more useful landform, but look at how the rest is going...(BMW site in the future is included in massive berm that seems like it doesn't need to take up half the site when built).

Unfortunately CF doesn't own the green strips at Lakeshore as those are the old rail line lands, so when I worked on this in 2017 we couldn't propose to build on them, which seems to still be the case.

I am in agreement that this once decent proposal has just gone to shiznit, along with the opportunity to build world class things like a train station people want to visit similar to Union. Lost opportunities all around. The current market doesn't help and only makes things worse to have nice things.

😖
 
tstormers said:
A little bit of info to go with this. The Flood protection landforms and the Coxwell Sewer bypass is in those green boxes and as great as it seems that they would be a great park there are limits to what is permitted to be put on the water side of the berms. Zero trees are allowed from what I recall
Click to expand...

That's correct.

tstormers said:
and the path that looks shown is on the top of it. I think they could have designed it better to be able to be a more useful landform,
Click to expand...

Everything you said is correct, but for clarity, my idea, crudely drawn, admittedly was to suggest placing a consolidated park at the interior (non-river) base of the berm and points east.

The object first being to create a park of usable size with programming options; the second being to consider what space is least likely to have shadow issues and mostly likely to cause them if built on.

You want to minimize height on the south and west, and maximize on the north and east.
 
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