Resubmission from March 30, 2021:

Sierra and RAW Design

Development Applications

City Planning COA Application Information Center
app.toronto.ca


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I think this design style has some more promise to it. In the end the materials execution will decide.

The potential grade level art is nice and the retail unit isnt large enough for any traditional big box style (shoppers, Rexall) at only 238 sqm. For comparison the Rexall at Queen and Dovercourt is about 956 sqm, and that's already a small format location.

Let's see it built
 
Other than the art, it's an uninviting, bland wall of glass at street level and it's replacing five storefronts along Bloor (plus one on Dovercourt) with one (or maybe two, if they subdivide that space, but I wouldn't hold my breath).
 
adHominem said:
Other than the art, it's an uninviting, bland wall of glass at street level and it's replacing five storefronts along Bloor (plus one on Dovercourt) with one (or maybe two, if they subdivide that space, but I wouldn't hold my breath).
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And adding 87 new housing units 400m from a subway station.

Meanwhile the hundreds of acres of land called Neighbourhoods surrounding it are completely protected from development.

It is the Official Plan, regressive Councillors, and unjust Neighbourhood protectionist policies that are to blame for this loss of fine-grain streetfront retail and architectural variety.

It is really sad and maddening.
 
neo said:
And adding 87 new housing units 400m from a subway station.

Meanwhile the hundreds of acres of land called Neighbourhoods surrounding it are completely protected from development.

It is the Official Plan, regressive Councillors, and unjust Neighbourhood protectionist policies that are to blame for this loss of fine-grain streetfront retail and architectural variety.

It is really sad and maddening.
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Low-rise neighbourhoods are protected by Councillors who don't believe that the majority of people want increased densities allowed (and who would therefore vote them out next time). New buildings don't have as much space in them for retail as there are quite a number of other things that mutli-storey buildings typically need at ground level, like a lobby, elevator core, mailroom, moving/garbage servicing area, access to parking levels. You just can't fit the same amount of retail in when you have other functions that need catering to.

42
 
It's already a blander street with the monochromatic paint colour.

interchange42 said:
New buildings don't have as much space in them for retail as there are quite a number of other things that mutli-storey buildings typically need at ground level
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This makes sense. I have to ask, is there a reason so many new buildings are long glass walls set back from the former streetwall with the rest of the podium cantilevered overtop? Not sure I'm using the right terminology, but I'm curious if there is an economic, or planning based reason that so many buildings do the exact same thing? I assume it boils down to being the cheapest way of creating a ground floor? I'm just wondering if there is an outside incentive to creating these toxic street environments.
 
Your English is great, and I agree it's a shame to lose the fine-grained retail here for something relatively bland, architecturally speaking. It's good to see some density on Bloor, but the form and architecture here are disappointing.
 
Yang OG said:
gentrifying beautiful old houses into modern shoe boxes if you know what
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I don't know about that. When a developer assembles land parcels, the people selling bought their houses ages ago when they were cheap. So these owners are usually raking in a fortune. On the other hand, the new condo residents are relative newcomers in the property market and often leveraged to the hilt with their mortgages. Or they're renters which doesn't make them particularly affluent either, most of the time.
 
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