[Rascacielo]

View attachment 319281
blogTO on the topic.

I think they're upset they have to retract their "We're getting a massive park over the rail deck" headline from a few years back. Wait, it's blogto, they never retract anything ...

 

[ciceror]

I'm not sure I agree with what it may house...but I'd say that artificial rock/cliff outcrop could end up being one of the 7 Wonders of Urban Canada if they pull that off right. That's pretty fracking amazing, IMO.

Perhaps we will get the option for some rock climbing activities. Can't think of many other cities that offer outdoor rock climbing

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

Perhaps we will get the option for some rock climbing activities. Can't think of many other cities that offer outdoor rock climbing

I suppose that depends of the liability coverage of such a thing. But yes, that's was one of the first things that came to mind though.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Perhaps we will get the option for some rock climbing activities. Can't think of many other cities that offer outdoor rock climbing

I've seen this at public plazas in South America. It was always a major favourite and there were lineups every weekend afternoon.

 

[Undead]

Nice place for rock climbing

image credit of @HousingNowTO

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

blogTO on the topic.

BlogTO, always the dumbest takes. Sure is a lot of park in that picture (but, again, this is how the City has mis-represented things, as if these guys aren't including any park in their proposal. No one was ever putting high-rises over the rail tracks)!

You're right in everything you say, but I was actually thinking that the park doesn't have to be so elevated above grade level if the parking level was removed.

I am probably missing something crucial engineering-wise, however.

It's been a couple of years since this was all fresh but I think you're right. For starters, I believe CN has requirements of how high off the tracks they have to be. The "cliff" they're creating along Front is the downside to that but at least as far as I recall, the parking is something they're able to do because of that; it's not that they raised the height to fit in the parking.

 

[Msleylar]

Perhaps we will get the option for some rock climbing activities. Can't think of many other cities that offer outdoor rock climbing

I've always loved this example of parking garage facade cladding in Tennessee:

Google Maps

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

www.google.ca

 

[ciceror]

Well, i'll be damned, Looking at the promo video, at the 26 second mark you can see people rock climbing in the bottom left of this cropped photo, I don't see any harnesses though

 

[Paul Aitken]

The mountain is completely ridiculous. It cannot stand. Whatever the engineering challenges, they're got to go back to drawing board and start afresh. Parking is absolutely not necessary in a project like this.

 

[thaivic]

Here's a loose comparable (note: in USD and buildings and grounds designed on an international oligarchical scale)
Hudson Yards in New York which decked over the LIRR rail yards.
HY: $25 billion project and covers 11 ha
that's $2.27b per hectare
$6 Billion of HY was funded through city and State
If Rail Deck Park footprint is 8 ha (confirm?) that comes to $18 b to construct deck, public spaces and fancy buildings... if we use HY as model

If you do the calculations at $1600 per sq ft for the residential and 1.5B for the office and commercial the value of this whole development would be around 5.5B , unfortunately Toronto is not NY.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Housing 5,000-plus people with literally no parking seems ambitious, even when when you don't take into account having some spots for visitors (to the condos, the park and downtown businesses in general...)

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

Well, i'll be damned, Looking at the promo video, at the 26 second mark you can see people rock climbing in the bottom left of this cropped photo, I don't see any harnesses though

View attachment 319294

Then again, it looks like liability coverage may not be an issue at all here...

 

[cd concept]

I can see that rock climbing cliff they have proposed in the photo up above. Is going to tagged like crazy by the masses. Creating a dirty slum looking park when they get their hands on it!

 

[interchange42]

You're right in everything you say, but I was actually thinking that the park doesn't have to be so elevated above grade level if the parking level was removed.

I am probably missing something crucial engineering-wise, however.

The idea is that the trusses to span the tracks will be high enough that between their lower extent (which has to clear the future electrical service over the tracks) and their upper extent (on which the deck can rest), there will be enough space to create a servicing and parking level. The space will be there anyway, and the buildings will have to be serviced, and as others have pointed out, zero parking for 2,500 units is not really possible yet, so… use that space between the trusses for parking.

42

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

The idea is that the trusses to span the tracks will be high enough that between their lower extent (which has to clear the future electrical service over the tracks) and their upper extent (on which the deck can rest), there will be enough space to create a servicing and parking level. The space will be there anyway, and the buildings will have to be serviced, and as others have pointed out, zero parking for 2,500 units is not really possible yet, so… use that space between the trusses for parking.

42

This is exactly what I was trying to say earlier
you can see it in the cross-section below but, as said above, they're not really making space for parking so much as they are putting it within otherwise dead space in the support structure. Pretty clever, really...

And as for those who think all this new open space adds up to little more than a glorified boardwalk. Shrug.