It would fit right in on Bay Street.

And as for what I want, I'm just not ready to proclaim this the best thing since sliced bread. I find the street level well-intentioned but sterile.

It's hard to think of new condo street level retail that isn't sterile, being so new and all. You're not going to get precisely carved wood that's weathered, small bits of leaded glass and gilt elements. Higher levels of detail come with diverse tenants that want to stand out. You don't get that immediately in an age where the generic design of big box retail is common.
 
The curved glass on the podium, would make this building stand out if it were on Bay Street.

Why does every street downtown have to be a retail showpiece? Bay street is a place where people live, not where people shop. At least not like the other commericial strips.
 
Scarb is right. This is a great podium - from the second floor on up. When retail gets swallowed by a collonade or an imposing facade like this, it looks forboding and forbidding, an afterthought in the designs. It runs contrary to the whole philosophy of engaging with street life, which is why it's there in the first place.
 
The street level is better than some other condos, but if we collectively agree that this is the best we can do, that means everything else will be worse...a scary thought.

Bay street is a place where people live, not where people shop.

And that's why Minto's sterile grey retail nooks populated by an assortment of convenient chain stores would fit right in there.
 
^^ It is almost a no-win situation for ground floor retail in condos.

Why? Because the city stipulates that these towers (and the ones on Bay, Sheppard, etc...) must have weather protecting collonades to accommodate pedestrians. But as we're discussing here, the effect is the opposite -- it acts as a barrier for pedestrians. So where is the win? Do you minimize the impact of the barrier? Do you get rid of it all together? Do you hope that by the time the whole avenue is developed they all have this feature and people will gladly walk under the covering and not the actual side walk? Etc etc...

We're right to comment that it takes away from the street-level. But it is a functional feature, much like RoCP, so which is more important?
 
stuff like this should have a patio/fountain. doesn't look like it will be so. and the stores seem too large, they don't go in as much as they stretch across the street. they could have easily fit in four tenants underneath each tower if they flipped the floor plans 90 degrees.
 
If more space on the main floors went retail, the towers would lose space that they are obviously using otherwise, like for lobby area, mailroom, loading (moving) space, garbage collection, etc.

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If more space on the main floors went retail, the towers would lose space that they are obviously using otherwise, like for lobby area, mailroom, loading (moving) space, garbage collection, etc.

That's true, the lobby is rather small, at least in the north tower, but the second floor lounge is really spacious. That's where all the facilities are. In the second floor, there's lounge facing the garden, there're a couple of private lounges, and other standard condo facilities, swimming pool, gyms, game rooms, party rooms, then there's an outdoor barbeque area.

Also having The Keg as one of your retailer is awesome. I've seen the plan for the interior design for the restaurant, it's amazing. Dark interior, with a huge bar, it has that lounge-atmosphere feeling to it. It's definitely going to be a first class restaurant.
 
Earth to Khatru... Earth to Khatru...

You live in siberianborough and hate everything in downtown... what gives??

Just wonderin'.

Perhaps a move?

I do not live in Scarborough, so you're gonna have to bitch about something else.

And since when is Yonge & Eglinton downtown?
 
mariokarter (SSC) does it again.

Yonge and Eglington here I come!
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NIMBYs get a good neighbour
October 20, 2007
Christopher Hume

The residents of North Toronto may not have invented NIMBYism, but they have perfected it. When Minto announced plans to build two tall residential towers just south of Yonge and Eglinton, you'd have thought the proposal called for babies to be burned in the streets.
Never mind that the complex was across the road from a subway station and a major bus terminal. Forget the fact the city's Official Plan calls for intensification of Toronto's main arteries, which includes both Yonge and Eglinton.
When the scheme was originally unveiled, ratepayers groups banded together, anti-Minto signs went up throughout the area and residents from Oriole Park to Mount Pleasant were arguing that the towers represented not just a threat to their sunshine, but to their very way of life.
Naturally, the case ended up before the Ontario Municipal Board, which gave Minto permission to proceed. Five years or so later, people are moving in to the first of two towers and the sky hasn't fallen in. If anything, North Toronto is better for the advent of the tower.
As is so often the story, the neighbours are their own worst enemy; though North Toronto has evolved from a quiet – no, dull – extension of the city into a wonderfully cosmopolitan district, residents still aren't entirely comfortable with urbanity. And to be honest, it must be pointed out that all those non-descript two- and three-storey buildings that line Yonge are infinitely adaptable. They can house restaurants, stereo shops, diving equipment stores and even strip clubs. They demonstrate the truth of Jane Jacobs's observation that, "New ideas need old buildings."
But like the rest of the city, North Toronto has undergone enormous change. Starting in the 1970s, a number of nasty-looking slab buildings went up at Yonge and Eglinton. The corner also got a mall, and not a very nice one, that remains to this day.
In fact, the '70s and '80s were not kind to the neighbourhood. Whole stretches of Balliol and Davisville were razed to make way for apartment buildings that by today's standards seem hopelessly wasteful and inefficient.
How ironic, then, that the Minto scheme – one of the first designed for urban conditions – should have triggered such an outcry. Fear of change isn't new and clearly there are good reasons to be afraid of the future, now more than ever.
But surely the point is that we must learn to handle growth, and control it, not kill it outright. Given the inevitable development of the TTC lands west of Yonge and Eglinton, and on Yonge north of Eglinton, the need to come to grips with change is imperative.
Resistance is futile.
CONDO CRITIC
THE QUANTUM: In accordance with prevailing fashions, the Quantum consists of a pair of tall, thin towers that sit atop a podium building.
The latter, which in this case is five storeys tall and beautifully clad in stone, creates a streetscape that never existed along this stretch of Yonge.
This means a new sense of urbanity and a strengthened connection between the east side of Yonge at Eglinton and Yonge farther south. Finally, it seems this part of Toronto's main street is a coherent unit. By contrast, the aging Canadian Tire headquarters building across the road reads like a black hole, a dead zone that cannot be brought back to life without starting over from scratch.
Already a bank has moved into the ground floor and it's clear that the completion of the north tower and the plaza between the two towers will transform the area.
Also interesting is the treatment of the top of the tower, which actually lives up to the idea of a crown. Constructed of steel and glass, Quantum brings new elegance and sophistication to its surroundings.
GRADE: B+
 

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