gristle said:
I was at the community meeting for this project, and it was not a pretty sight. The architect presenting was Rudy Wallman.

The proposal, noted as a joint development between Minto and Freed, is in its early design stage. The presentation indicated four towers to be built on top of a massive 105,000 square foot podium area. The tallest of the towers is to be 30 floors in height (corner of Bathurst and Front), followed by a 25 floor building facing onto Front (beside Reve), and two more towers of 18 and 16 storeys on Niagra. No actual height measurements were provided.

Keep in mind that the existing height limit for the area is generally nine floors, or approximately 30 metres. Structures facing onto Bathurst can go a little higher due to the width of that street. Based on that practice, the tallest in the vicinity will be the Bathurst building of 650 King Street (16 floors).

The proposal, as presented, was incredibly bland and architecturally uninspiring. It was also totally out of scale with the neighbourhood.

A small linear park between Front and Niagra that opens up onto Victoria Memorial Park was included in the proposal. The trouble is that it would sit right below those big blank windowless walls on the west side of Reve.

The proposal was universally panned by a standing-room only crowd. Essentially, the presenters were told to go away and try again.



All that being said, demolition of some of the existing buildings on the proposal site could be under way by the summer.
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I was at the meeting as well. Your summary is bang on. The main thing I did like about the proposal was that all vehicle traffic to the site is directed to the underground via ramp access on Front Street; no other at grade driveways or dropoffs. I thought that was very thoughtful to the neighbourhood. However, the heights of the buildings along Niagara Street are totally unsympathetic to the neighbourhood, and the blank western wall of Reve was not addressed in any helpful way.
 
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I'm guessing that this was an expected response to last night's meeting. Propose 18 floors and you'll end up with 14. But propose 30 floors and then your "more reasonable" proposal comes in at 18 to 20 stories. Bringing all the towers down relative to that will also bring the number of units closer to the 600 of the original proposal here as opposed to the 900 suggested last night.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar proposal but with shortened towers to address this. Oh, and they'll have to address that park with the foreboding black wall...
 
Did the people at the meeting actually complain to the developers that the design was boring?
 
Yes, but the developers themselves didnt have the balls to show up. They left it to poor Rudy and his LA buddy. Usually a planner or lawyer show up as well, but they may have been hiding in the background.
 
Team Me said:
I'm guessing that this was an expected response to last night's meeting. Propose 18 floors and you'll end up with 14. But propose 30 floors and then your "more reasonable" proposal comes in at 18 to 20 stories. Bringing all the towers down relative to that will also bring the number of units closer to the 600 of the original proposal here as opposed to the 900 suggested last night.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar proposal but with shortened towers to address this. Oh, and they'll have to address that park with the foreboding black wall...
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How tall is this blank windowless wall?
 
The blank wall (actually and L-shaped wall) is nine floors high, or roughly somewhere around 25 metres in height.
 
scrappyTO said:
I was at the meeting as well. Your summary is bang on. The main thing I did like about the proposal was that all vehicle traffic to the site is directed to the underground via ramp access on Front Street; no other at grade driveways or dropoffs. I thought that was very thoughtful to the neighbourhood. However, the heights of the buildings along Niagara Street are totally unsympathetic to the neighbourhood, and the blank western wall of Reve was not addressed in any helpful way.
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I am not sure how throughtful to the neighbourhood the design, without any ground level vehicle access on the property, would be. I am quite sure that taxis when dropping off passengers, or waiting for their pickups to come down, would stop on the adjoining street. Similarly - I would not be surprised if the food delivery drivers parked half on the sidewalk in front of the appropriate resident's street level entrance. Oh, and what about the moving trucks for people moving into and out of a 900 unit compex (which I had also heard was going to have in the order of 1,200 units)? I suspect the large trucks would not be able to use the underground ramp access - they will park on the street, whether Front, Bathurst or Niagara, as well.

AHK
 
I was at the public meeting for this site as well as the meeting back when Architects Alliance submitted a proposal a year or two ago. The aA one was top notch compared to this. Wallman seems to be designing the majority of downtown sites these days.
 
AHK said:
I am not sure how throughtful to the neighbourhood the design, without any ground level vehicle access on the property, would be. I am quite sure that taxis when dropping off passengers, or waiting for their pickups to come down, would stop on the adjoining street. Similarly - I would not be surprised if the food delivery drivers parked half on the sidewalk in front of the appropriate resident's street level entrance. Oh, and what about the moving trucks for people moving into and out of a 900 unit compex (which I had also heard was going to have in the order of 1,200 units)? I suspect the large trucks would not be able to use the underground ramp access - they will park on the street, whether Front, Bathurst or Niagara, as well.

AHK
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I agree that taxis, etc. would stop at the curb. But having only one ramp from Front Street reduces the number of locations for conflict between pedestrians walking those blocks and cars entering the site, right? I believe all the service vehicles would also be directed down the ramp to the various loading facilities below grade since the plans I saw had absolutely no loading facilities at grade for the huge retail spaces nor condos, but let's wait until we see the drawings. There's so much resistance to the current plans I'd assume redesigns will follow; I just liked that there weren't lots of vehicle/pedestrian crossings along the block. I live on Niagara; a few taxis and deliveries stopping at the curb are not a problem at all.
 
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I was at the meeting and I was more intrigued by the guy who kept asking questions and looked like Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother. I was absolutelu convinced by the end of the meeting that it was him (ya ya he is fictional).

Anyway, I don't think you can get a developer to do anything about a black wall on another building built by another developer. You can request that they make that a living wall, put a mural, etc...but it's not up to Freed/Minto to do.

I agree, the concept was too large. However I'm surprised that many don't like the architecture. I personally don't (nor do I like anything going up in City Place) but many like the modern glass look.

The developers had a lawyer there. In fact the developers were there since I was talking to a few of them after the meeting. But the community is lucky to have 2 great assets on their side to fight for a good vision; Ken Greenberg and Harold Madi.
 
Minto Developments partnered Tesla Motors to highlight the 2 St Thomas property.

Walking by the Bathurst/Front property, I noticed Minto and Tesla were also showcasing the cars at this location too.

Photos taken June 12, 2011


raT2p.jpg




UTtYL.jpg
 
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Very interesting. Last week, while walking by here, I noticed that the exotic car dealership had been forced out and that a render of some sort was bound to make itself known. I guess we'll just have to wait a bit longer.
 
ProjectEnd said:
Very interesting. I noticed that the exotic car dealership had been forced out
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Hahaha:D...i doubt the sheriffs came in and booted them out, they are probably not to worried to leave this lousy location and move into a larger and fancier space and area that is more directed into their league of high-end autos
Anyways... anything built here which includes commercial space, will be a bonus to this down and out section of Front street west.
 
Apparently the entire site in question is to demolished this summer and will be left vacant until any proposed building takes place. No new surface parking lots are allowed in the regeneration area (at least no legal parking lots).
 
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