Wow, just waded into the last couple pages of this thread; it's patently absurd to suggest that WT (or any body, for that matter) has misled the public on any aspect of this redevelopment.

Last week's announcement is pure, unbridled good urbanism news for Toronto. Let's please just enjoy that oh-so-rare win until or unless there's actually something real to gripe or worry about.
 
Lenser said:
Television and film production in Toronto are now pretty much year-long. Things slow a tad in the winter (definitely less outdoor and location shooting due to the weather) but the city has been enjoying a long run of steady work. Ten years ago or more, yes - film and TV was certainly more of a seasonal thing. Not any more.

As I understand it, the future of the Portlands is destined to be mixed - industry, commercial/retail, residential and parkland. It's important for the city's future that a good percentage of the area be retained for employment purposes - and this is an industry that tends to pay well - also a good thing for Toronto's economy.
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I think the other thing is that as land values rise it may make sense for the film industry to relocate...when this happens the land will be freed up all at once and a plan will be put forth at that point for the freed up land...no point planning that now as it will be 3-5 decades before it happens...
 
georgevicbell said:
I think the other thing is that as land values rise it may make sense for the film industry to relocate...when this happens the land will be freed up all at once and a plan will be put forth at that point for the freed up land...no point planning that now as it will be 3-5 decades before it happens...
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Not sure if land values will rise enough in my lifetime for a place like Pinewood to be forced to relocate. It's one cog in a monster international film-making machine and they don't shell out big bucks on extensive multi-phase sound stage and production facilities without planning for such projects to stick around for a very long time. Nor does it make sense that lands currently held by film and television production will one day be "freed up all at once;" it's far more likely that it will be, in an era down the road, a slow death to to attrition.

Meanwhile, the locations of such facilities is very strategic - proximity to a large workforce, to the 400 series highways, and to downtown (for location shoots and for all of the stars who stay in the city for the duration of a shoot) means that these are extremely viable locations. They won't likely move or otherwise get shut down unless things take a very grim turn for the worse. That just doesn't look terribly likely at this stage of the game. The Toronto industry has been steadily building over the past thirty years and it's planning to get only larger and more entrenched.
 
Here's the view of the present situation just upstream from the mouth of the Don. Preeeeeeety ugly. Those federal dollars can't come any quicker. From this weekend:
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Lenser said:
Not sure if land values will rise enough in my lifetime for a place like Pinewood to be forced to relocate. It's one cog in a monster international film-making machine and they don't shell out big bucks on extensive multi-phase sound stage and production facilities without planning for such projects to stick around for a very long time. Nor does it make sense that lands currently held by film and television production will one day be "freed up all at once;" it's far more likely that it will be, in an era down the road, a slow death to to attrition.

Meanwhile, the locations of such facilities is very strategic - proximity to a large workforce, to the 400 series highways, and to downtown (for location shoots and for all of the stars who stay in the city for the duration of a shoot) means that these are extremely viable locations. They won't likely move or otherwise get shut down unless things take a very grim turn for the worse. That just doesn't look terribly likely at this stage of the game. The Toronto industry has been steadily building over the past thirty years and it's planning to get only larger and more entrenched.
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I thought one of the projects Pinewood wanted to undertake were some actual condo developments integrated into film sets. Probably one of those projects that have to wait until the infrastructural elements of the Portlands are in place.

I also don't think film production and a residential/office neighbourhood can't coexist- the largest issues are usually sound and traffic (plus the inevitable NIMBIES), but those can be managed. In fact- there may be certain benefits and "synergies" (or whatever term might be used) for having post-production facilities located literally beside the film studios.
 
bilked said:
Here's the view of the present situation just upstream from the mouth of the Don. Preeeeeeety ugly. Those federal dollars can't come any quicker. From this weekend:
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That won't necessarily disappear - but it could be better managed under the scheme with the debris/sediment management system proposed just south of the railway yard. In the long term they are, and will need to stop dumping untreated storm sewer discharge into the river.

AoD
 
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Neat one today from the Myseum Toronto Instagram account.

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And the caption:

With the final Myseum X @artspintoronto tour of the summer just around the corner, we give you the final site in our virtual excavation: the Port Lands!

The area we now know as the Port Lands was originally a large spit formed over many centuries by sand washed from the Scarborough Bluffs and silt carried by the Don River. This unique section of sandbar, ponds, creeks and marshland extended to Ashbridges Bay, and connected the waterfront to a south peninsula known previously as Island of Hiawatha. The Hiawatha name was given in honour of the early First Nationals leader and co-founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, and was used extensively until about 1924. Due to its abundance of fish, Indigenous communities likely used the area for hunting and fishing, a practice continued by Euro-Canadian settlers who would later rename the area Fisherman’s Island. During the 19th century, however, multiple storms breached the sand spit, creating the East Gap and Toronto Island.

By the 1880s, the land along the sand spit was gradually filled in, while the western edge was reinforced with a new breakwater. The property was quickly developed for industrial purposes, housing various factories and storage facilities, in addition to a dumping site for the distillers Gooderham and Worts. By the 1890s, the area was so heavily polluted that the city was forced to intervene, although this did little to prevent further industrialization of the area. Over the next 100 years, various factories and refineries, including the now defunct Hearn Power station, were built on the land, further contaminating the soil and polluting the water. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the area became de-industrialized; many of the factories were eventually abandoned, and remain so today. Currently undergoing cleanup, revitalization and redevelopment by Waterfront Toronto, the Port Lands is expected to serve future communities as a mixed use and cultural area - a massive undertaking intended to breathe new life into the historic area.
 

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Little tidbits from the latest WT newsletter; the project's so big and sprawling that I've mostly lost track of what's been announced to which degree of detail, but here's some concrete info on a few next steps:

What Happens Now?
The PLFPEI project will take seven years to build. The plan is already in place and vetted through a rigorous due diligence process. That means we’re positioned to start detailed design right away. Because we received some funding for the CSLF (Cherry Street Stormwater and Lakefilling) project already, detailed design for the CSLF project began in September 2016 and is almost complete. We will start construction on that component this fall and we will begin digging the river in 2018.

We are currently working with the Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments on agreements that will allow funds to flow as needed between now and project completion. We are also in the process of procuring the lead contractor on this project, who will act as our construction manager on both the CSLF project and the broader flood protection project.

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Construction on the Cherry Street Stormwater & Lakefilling Project
Construction in the Port Lands will start this fall with the creation of a new landform around the existing Essroc Quay and the re-routing of an existing storm sewer. The landform will create room to re-align Cherry Street and build a new, higher bridge over the Keating Channel to better withstand and accommodate floodwaters. This new landform will also be the base of the future Promonotory Park North. In addition to lakefilling, creating this new landform involves the design and construction of confinement berms, rock armoring and dockwall structures. We’ll also build new aquatic and terrestrial ecological habitat.

We will form a Construction Liaison Committee (CLC) this fall before construction begins. Once we have details about construction staging and schedule, we will share them through the CLC as well as on our website and in construction notices.
 

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The July 2013 rain event, Lake Ontario high water levels, Houston impact from Hurricane Harvey and the rain this week in Windsor ON. The writing is on the wall! Hopefully, the decision makers will see the need to accelerate the work schedule.I wonder what are the contingency plans in the event of a significant rain event in the middle of construction work?
 
checknate said:
The July 2013 rain event, Lake Ontario high water levels, Houston impact from Hurricane Harvey and the rain this week in Windsor ON. The writing is on the wall! Hopefully, the decision makers will see the need to accelerate the work schedule.I wonder what are the contingency plans in the event of a significant rain event in the middle of construction work?
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The area is already in a floodplain, and there are few new and intense developments in the area partly because of that (and partly because the area is mainly of industrial uses right now). A major rainfall will have limited impact as far as this area is concerned (except for parts of South Riverdale that is technically vulnerable)

AoD
 
Would I be correct to assume during construction, shore line stabilization, dredging and other steps needed to complete the work, will not interfere with volume flow levels and possible upstream backup.My question is what's the contingency plan for an event at least at the 2013 level or greater?
 
checknate said:
The July 2013 rain event, Lake Ontario high water levels, Houston impact from Hurricane Harvey and the rain this week in Windsor ON. The writing is on the wall! Hopefully, the decision makers will see the need to accelerate the work schedule.I wonder what are the contingency plans in the event of a significant rain event in the middle of construction work?
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Your concerns are not misplaced. At this time, the "Consumers Gas Bridge" (which also carries a massive water main) is having the northwestern piers buttressed, it was dangerously eroded by previous floods, and considered to be vulnerable to more.

Here's an excerpt of a story on the bridge:
[...] Running parallel to the now-unused Eastern Avenue Bridge is the peculiar grey covered structure in question. Spanning the river since 1930, this 133 foot structure isn’t actually a bridge—at least, not in the traditional sense. In its eighty years of existence, it has never been used for either pedestrian or vehicular traffic.
Once upon a time, Consumers’ Gas (now Enbridge) operated three coal gas manufacturing facilities in Toronto. One of these plants was located on Eastern Avenue, near Booth Avenue. A second was at Parliament and Front streets, and the third was across town, at Front and Bathurst streets. From these locations, massive gas pipelines snaked under the city. Pipelines serving the Eastern Avenue Consumers’ Gas facility were (and continue to be) housed in the concrete structure spanning the Don River.
When initially constructed, technology was such that it was easier to run these particularly large gas mains over the river than it was to tunnel under the river. And while it might have seemed easier to suspend the mains from the underside of the original Eastern Avenue truss bridge rather than building a separate structure, this would have been untenable. Considering the weight and dimensions of the pipelines, engineers calculated that the truss bridge could not bear such a load.
Even though coal gas was replaced by the use of natural gas long ago, the pipelines transporting the fuel remain a vital part of Enbridge’s infrastructure; thus, the continued need for the grey bridge to nowhere.
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http://torontoist.com/2010/07/ask_torontoist_grey_bridge/

Here is a pic of the bridge immediately to the north of and behind the old Eastern Avenue bridge:
1280px-King_Street_Bridge.JPG

SimonP

It would be unfair to reveal my source of information, it is from an engineer, "I'll be very surprised if this structure is still remaining in five years". It is a liability for a number of reasons, and on its last legs. The plan is to tunnel the massive gas main (and ostensibly City water main) under the river, distance not discussed. One only has to read the latest on the pipeline vulnerability in Houston to realize the danger here also. I suspect in lieu of that, the replacement of the bridge will be accelerated. The pier repair ongoing is a stop-gap measure. Gas main pressure in the pipe is over 300 psi, btw.

The old Eastern Avenue truss bridge is a different story, however, AFAIK. It would be an absolute shame to lose that, not to mention that other than its own structure, it isn't load-bearing at this time.
 
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