salsa said:
.... but today all we get are simplistic green/blue glass boxes in prime locations like Waterpark Place, Bay-Adelaide Centre, and Ritz-Carlton?
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I would argue that Bay-Adelaide is equal in quality (materials, detailing, site-planning) to a Scotia Plaza......
 
Red October said:
Because at the time those companies were going at it with their dick-measuring contest trying to outdo each other. Now that that already happened we don't really have big private players putting tons of money into beating each other.

(generally speaking)
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As you say, generally speaking this is true. But with office projects like 45 Bay, 160 Front and Oxford Place, things appear to be changing for the better.
 
Let's not count the chickens on this quite yet though! There have been some great buildings added during this epic building boom for sure, but it's easy to lose sight of them amid the sea of mediocrity.
 
Also keep in mind, that when the main bank towers were built, the Banks themselves had a financial stake in the development.

Scotiaplaza was only sold recently by the Bank of Nova Scotia within the past year or two, I believe, to a pension fund in Alberta.
 
caltrane74 said:
Also keep in mind, that when the main bank towers were built, the Banks themselves had a financial stake in the development.

Scotiaplaza was only sold recently by the Bank of Nova Scotia within the past year or two, I believe, to a pension fund in Alberta.
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If I recall correctly, when sold, Scotia Plaza went to Dundee Reit (80%) and H&R Reit (20%). Dundee Reit is now called Dream Office Reit (that was news to me), and their portfolio lists Scotia Plaza as a 66.7% holding. H&R Reit also lists the Scotia Plaza buildings (including 4 King West, the old Noranda building) and 100 Yonge as holdings, but does not indicate ownership proportions.
 
Parkdalian said:
This is getting seriously off topic, but why do we compare ourselves to Chicago? Toronto - aside from population - is not very similar to Chicago. Chicago's GDP is almost twice Toronto's, and it was once one of the ten largest cities in the world. It is still the third largest in the US. Chicago has access to cash for all of that fancy frou-frou architecture that Toronto simply doesn't. That isn't so much about different values - it's about cash. Our condos are built for middle class people, and they represent middle-class values. If we want to compare architecture to a city with comparable wealth and metro population, it would be a city like Atlanta.
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These types of posts are really annoying. Did you even bother to do your research on the area they use to come up with those GDP calculations? This list includes a tiny part of the Golden Horseshoe (about 3 000sq km) while including all of Chicagoland (over 28 0000sq km). We've discussed this over and over. When given similar areas, the populations are nearly identical (Toronto will surpass Chicago in this regard within a decade or two at the current rate), and the GDP differences are nowhere near as exaggerated as you'd like us to believe.
 
Sorry to have annoyed you! I find comparisons to Chicago equally annoying.

And since the cities aren't considered by anyone except people on this forum to be the same size, coming up with = areas seems like an arbitrary way to compare - it's like trying to find a way to say that Toronto, somehow, is the same size as Chicago, even if it turns out we are pretending that all of Ontario is part of Toronto. (Ontario's GDP is essentially equal to Chicago's.) Sure, if that makes you feel good, but I don't think it comes close to reflecting reality.

And my point is that this sort of "Toronto is the same as Chicago! Therefore we should have equal things!" idea is the sort of chant we hear from people who think that we need to be globally important and that all cities follow the same trajectory in their development. Toronto is veeeeeeerrrry different from Chicago, its history is enormously different, and in the context of American power, it is rising, but still nowhere as important. But that's okay! Toronto has to find its own way, and not pretend that Chicago is some marker of development.
 
Parkdalian said:
Sorry to have annoyed you! I find comparisons to Chicago equally annoying.

And since the cities aren't considered by anyone except people on this forum to be the same size, coming up with = areas seems like an arbitrary way to compare - it's like trying to find a way to say that Toronto, somehow, is the same size as Chicago, even if it turns out we are pretending that all of Ontario is part of Toronto. (Ontario's GDP is essentially equal to Chicago's.) Sure, if that makes you feel good, but I don't think it comes close to reflecting reality.

And my point is that this sort of "Toronto is the same as Chicago! Therefore we should have equal things!" idea is the sort of chant we hear from people who think that we need to be globally important and that all cities follow the same trajectory in their development. Toronto is veeeeeeerrrry different from Chicago, its history is enormously different, and in the context of American power, it is rising, but still nowhere as important. But that's okay! Toronto has to find its own way, and not pretend that Chicago is some marker of development.
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You know, I would normally go out of my way to find stats for you, but you were hardheaded enough to completely ignore my previous post, so I won't bother. Why is it fair in your mind to use the surrounding 30 thousand kilometre area to come up with Chicago's GDP, but we have to confine ourselves to a small 3 thousand kilometre area when calculating Toronto's GDP? FYI, Ontario's GDP ($612 Billion USD) is nearly identical to Illinois' ($650 Billion USD), and both cities form nearly identical proportions of either province/state's population, so maybe you should ask yourself where the Chicago stats are coming from instead of regurgitating them without doing your own research?
 
... and it's not like anybody is claiming that Toronto is identical to Chicago, or comparable in every way possible, just that the similarities are pretty darn obvious... whereas Atlanta? really??

Perhaps the judgement is clouded?:

Parkdalian said:
I find comparisons to Chicago equally annoying.
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