I can't see Concourse being demolished with all the ongoing facade repairs and interior upgrades.

Maybe it is the 1966 first phase we should be concern about being "incorporated" as it also abuts the developable parkade and small surface lot
 
AP, by 2006 standards, that'd be like approving the removal of Old City Hall on behalf of SOM's Eaton Centre 4 decades ago. (Though if that did come to pass, I admit, there'd probably be a contingent rallying to "save SOM" today...)

And however "good" the new building is, it's still fairly standard-issue present-day WZMH, i.e. other than the abstract values of it being a new tower with "Class A office space"--what's worth rallying for? It may be "good", but in terms of a city that's been hung up over architectural world-classness or the hitherto lack thereof, it's still "mediocre"--just another conservative WZMH office building, decent, but...

Sure, offer the "parts worth saving" argument. But given the heritage-community symbolism the Concourse has come to carry, it comes across as peevish as John Geiger's anti-Docomomo bile. And yeah, I know you're nostalgic for a time when men of taste were men of taste and were properly groomed and wore suits and ties to work and had an optimism about the future that had yet to be monkey-wrenched by them yammering building-hugging preservationists, but...eeesh...
 
Why are you so dead set in favour of saving pokey, small offices, not wired for internet, or fax, with bad hvac and which are not configureable for current office use and are therefore unrentable? Would you want to work there? If so, why don't you rent the whole building and remove Oxford's need to make their asset profitable.

The only thing worth saving at the Concourse building is the facade. They're doing that.
 
I used to work in that building and have no trouble stating that it is absolutely awful inside.
 
Why are you so dead set in favour of saving pokey, small offices, not wired for internet, or fax, with bad hvac and which are not configureable for current office use and are therefore unrentable? Would you want to work there? If so, why don't you rent the whole building and remove Oxford's need to make their asset profitable.
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Similar arguments would have been given on behalf of SOM's Eaton Centre vs Old City Hall 40 years ago. (Which may be less an argument for retention, than a means of highlighting how preservation politics have worked...)
 
I have no problem with gutting the Concourse building, but the current RA III design is just goofy.
 
And that's part of my point; aside from the "class A office space" and "profitable asset for Oxford" factors, aesthetically speaking, where's the "interest" in the design? It's WZMH-by-numbers. It's like the so-called bad old days of Toronto settling for the homegrown-humdrum, before we got bombarded by Mayne/Libeskind/Gehry/Alsop and all of that. To use the saving of the Concourse facade as an alibi for, er, "mediocrity"...why? (Though yes, Dickinson/WZMH did the rest of the R-A towers, so there's "provenance" here.)

If you got to "facadize" the Concourse, of all places, do it on behalf of something better. (For that matter, Oxford already mucked up the main floor of the original R-A tower by replacing all that International Style milk glass with PoMo stone--hoo boy.)
 
Perhaps, adma, you could explain what exactly is wrong with it other than you don't like it.
 
Boy, this is like a Clash fan trying to reason with a Toto fan c1979...
 
I totally agree with adma on this one, I think the proposed tower is absolutely, completely banal. One could imagine them continuing the glassy tower to its conclusion at the base base except - oops there's somethere there already so we'll just take a chunk out.

It's a carefully made bed with a big lumpy pillow in the middle of the mattress that nobody moved. They just tucked in the sheets around it. It's a sad, pathetic design.

Why are you so dead set in favour of saving pokey, small offices, not wired for internet, or fax, with bad hvac and which are not configureable for current office use and are therefore unrentable?
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I'm very, very much in favour of saving these buildings. They can house weird little tenants, start-ups, and marginal businesses that are more interesting than Class A tenants, and more importantly, are more likely to grow rapidly. If they become successful they can move out and up into better quarters, but there's a huge benefit to having less than Class A offices around.
 
But Oxford doesn't care if their tenants are interesting. They care that they can pay the highest rent possilbe.

Besides, how could some start up survive in an office that can't be wired for 21st century phone, fax and internet. And that can't have HVAC installed to keep all the desktops, monitors and servers cool?
 
Boy, this is like a Clash fan trying to reason with a Toto fan c1979...
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Not really. Those of us who like the Clash did so then because we enjoyed progress in music, and didn't want to hang on to old, outdated, useless forms. Also, we could, and can, explain why we like the Clash.

So far, you haven't articulated any reason why useless interior of the Concourse building should be maintained, or why you don't like the curved glass tower that will rise above the preserved facade.
 
Obviously, you're not listening. I've explained exactly what one of the benefits of the "useless" interior of the Concourse Building is, and you've simply passed it over.

For instance, when the gay archives was desperate to find space a few years ago they found it in a marginal building on Temperance Street. They're not exactly in the running for "Class A" office space, but they were able to find a home, thanks to a fairly unpopular and not very prominent buildings. These types of buildings are essential to the city. As for the internet, have you heard of wireless?

I understand that developers are in the business of making money, my suggestion is not that they should keep the Concourse as is so as to "benefit" the city. But I think you are seriously wrong in your dismissal of sub-A office space, especially in the core.

I see you've stopped defending the design. Just as well.
 
Not at all. I still think it's a good building, unless they've changed the design since Friday. But I'm glad to see that you agree that there is nothing about the interior of the Concourse Building that warrants preservation.

And while marginal office space may be of benefit to marginal groups, you can hardly expect a major landlord to degrade an asset to satisfy a few marginal groups, especially an asset in the downtown core. There is no shortage of crap space for those with no means to pay rent.
 
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