I totally concur with Andrioduk. Peel off all the tacky signage on the storefronts and you'd have a totally different perspective of Yonge Street. They should have established historical conditions to signage years ago. This condo development looks like a winner in all respects
 
The more sensitive projects like this in and around Yonge the better. With the increased density, the next logical step of urban development will be the conversion of yonge street into a car-free urban living room.
 
isaidso said:
Buildings shouldn't be saved just because they are old. Surely there are some guidelines as to what is of historic value beyond age of building? Some of these buildings were a piece of junk when they were new. They don't improve with age like Scotch. Some of the frontage on Yonge is definitely worth saving, but a great deal of it is not. I know that there are strict regulations regarding heights and development along Yonge, but do they really make any sense any more? It's considered blasphemy to even bring it up in many circles, but sometimes a city needs to save the best, and re-invent itself by tearing down the rest.

If people really do want to keep some of these 3 story buildings, have them moved somewhere else. Yonge Street can't continue like this forever. It's an embarrassment.
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And indeed you're right: age alone doesn't make a building worth saving. The guidelines you're surmising actually do exist; in fact, I went hunting and dug 'em up. They're described in a regulation pursuant to the Ontario Heritage Act. (The act calls for the establishment of guidelines, but I can't find them in the act itself. Maybe someone can clarify just how this works.)

Here's a short summary of the factors that are used to determine whether a building in Ontario will be designated. Does the building have...
• Design or physical value, meaning that the property
– Is a rare, unique, representative or early example of a style, type, expression, material or construction method; or
– Displays a high degree of craftsmanship or artistic merit; or
– Demonstrates a high degree of technical or scientific achievement.

• Historical or associative value, meaning that the property
– Has direct associations with a theme, event, belief, person, activity, organization, or institution that is significant to a community; or
– Yields, or has potential to yield, information that contributes to an understanding of a community or culture; or
– demonstrates or reflects the work or ideas of an architect, artist, builder, designer or theorist who is significant to a community.

• Contextual value, meaning that the property
– Is important in defining, maintaining or supporting the character of an area; or
– Is physically, functionally, visually or historically linked to its surroundings; or
– Is a landmark.

(drawn from this PDF)
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So yes, just the fact of being old-timey isn't enough. This cuts both ways, incidentally: considering additional factors like this sometimes winds up saving old structures that are butt-ugly and nobody likes, but happen to be historically significant. Case in point, the old trainshed roof at Union Station, which happens to be of a particular design that's an endangered species.

But with regards to the Yonge St. frontage, it's not just the aesthetics that are at play. It's the land use, and the variety of tenants you get. Like Jane Jacobs said, you need old buildings for new uses. That area right now houses falafel joints, dance studios, gay bookstores, wonky apartments... you name it. What goes into the first floor of a condo? A dry cleaner's. A Starbucks. A Rabba. A chain store that can afford the high rents and tight space of a new-build condo. It makes for a lesser street, and lesser city.

I disagree with you about the aesthetics - but then, they're aesthetics, and people will disagree about that. But let me put this to you: Why do you consider the stretch an embarrassment?
 
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UrbanFervour said:
The more sensitive projects like this in and around Yonge the better. With the increased density, the next logical step of urban development will be the conversion of yonge street into a car-free urban living room.
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As it happens, they tried occasionaly going car-free on Yonge for a while in the 70's. (Contrary to popular belief, our generation didn't have the world's first progressive ideas.) I'd have to defer to someone who was actually there at the time, but my understanding is that it was a fiasco.
 
With the amount of pedestrian traffic Yonge St sees these days, I doubt it would be a fiasco now... at least between Queen and Gerrard, or something like that. It could work.
 
I'd like to see it pedestrian all the way to bloor. At the very least take out one lane each direction and make it sidewalk.
 
One of the surest way to kill the vibrancy of streets is to turn them into pedestrian only. Research based on many such experiments has shown that in most cases it does not pan out as hoped. Wider sidewalks might be good though.
 
ponyboy said:
One of the surest way to kill the vibrancy of streets is to turn them into pedestrian only. Research based on many such experiments has shown that in most cases it does not pan out as hoped. Wider sidewalks might be good though.
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In the 1970s Yonge Street businesses did not have the supporting population to rely on foot and bicycle only (the 1970s being the last half-hearted attempt to pedestrianize the street by setting out a few potted plants and calling it a day).

My point is that it probably will in the future. I am sure you are thinking about Bank St. in Ottawa and other attempts in car-dependent cities as bad examples of pedestrianization, but there are examples of pedestrianized streets all over the world that are extremely vibrant.

I am actually in Miami right now and without the Lincoln Rd. Miami would just be a strip of hotels, beach and nice weather. Lincoln Rd. MAKES Miami. I haven't been to Copenhagen, but the Stroget proves that pedestrian streets can and so work in a colder climates, too.
 
I agree, there are so many residential highrises in this corridor now that comparing it to the 70s experiment is no longer relevant.
 
That said I am not sure if the situation warrants turning that stretch into a pedestrian mall at this time - upgraded streetscape/widened sidewalks, yes.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
That said I am not sure if the situation warrants turning that stretch into a pedestrian mall at this time - upgraded streetscape/widened sidewalks, yes.

AoD
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^Agreed

In all likelihood, with developments like Five and Aura just down the street, (and our crappy Canadian climate) we are more apt to see an extension of the PATH system to the North, before we see another pedestrian mall on Yonge Street.
 
Sir Novelty Fashion said:
As it happens, they tried occasionaly going car-free on Yonge for a while in the 70's. (Contrary to popular belief, our generation didn't have the world's first progressive ideas.) I'd have to defer to someone who was actually there at the time, but my understanding is that it was a fiasco.
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It wasn't a fiasco at all, actually it was quite nice. I lived in North York and my family used to go down almost every weekend. We loved it! The street was always full of people. There were free outdoor concerts, theatre, as well as lots of street buskers. Back then Toronto wasn't lined with outdoor patios or open spaces, so the cool thing for me, was seeing outdoor patios on Yonge Street, full of people eating and drinking. Being able to eat on outdoor patios, right on the street, was a big deal back then. The atmosphere was quite exciting for a young punk from suburban North York. I think people who try to paint it as a fiasco or failure, have an agenda. The only reason it ended, was the murder of the shoe-shine boy. After that, people blamed Yonge Street and labeled it a sleazy place, when actually almost everyone there were just middle class Canadians.

Also the downtown car crowd never took a liking to it. Rosedale bankers grumbled and wanted their street back. They were probably also the ones who labeled it a "fiasco".
 
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1974 Yonge Street Mall (from www.getstockphotos.ca):

yongemall.jpg
yongemall2.jpg
 
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