evandyk
Senior Member
There will certainly be enough people living at the corner to support fast casual restaurants. But the neighbourhood has plenty of those, and some real restaurants would be great, as there's a shortage in the area.
- Thread starter CityPainter
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DavidCapizzano
Senior Member
From a distance - grid looks better from far away / when it’s very sunny. Wouldn’t have minded if the white fins were a bit more beefy, but overall the project is quite nice.
soundmuseum
Active Member
Regarding ground level occupants - the new Ikea that opened downtown at the Aura had signs promoting PenguinPickUp locations to get your furniture delivered. One location on the poster was marked as being at Lower Sherbourne and Front Street. There is no such location listed on their website. Could they be possibly be opening up a storefront at ground level in this building? The only other location I can think of might be Time & Space across the street, but that seems like a longer way away from being ready to open.
evandyk
Senior Member
Ugh. I'd rather have a pot shop.
Ramako
Moderator
Neither
ADRM
Senior Member
featherfactory
New Member
Ooo I’ve always wondered how large trees were supported underneath the sidewalks.
DSC
Superstar
The Silva cells are both new and not common. Most street trees fight for life and they die young.
Northern Light
Superstar
Silva cells are now a required standard in new build streetscapes, unless it can be shown to be impossible.
However, you are quite right that that is relatively recent, Bloor's (Yorkville) re-do was the first large-scale installation that I can recall though there may have been a few small ones earlier.
So they started to become normative in about 2011; and became a required standard sometime in the last few years.
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The average life for a Toronto Street Tree in the old City (to distinguish from those in wide soft boulevards) is about 7 years.
evandyk
Senior Member
I had read about them, but had never seen one, so thought I'd share a snap.
Toronto is doing a lot better with trees now than 10-15 years ago, that's for sure.
daptive
Active Member
Wow, 7 years is not a long time! How does this number change with trees planted in Silva cells?
Northern Light
Superstar
It's early days to say w/certainty in Toronto, as the very first time we used Silva Cells was on The Queensway in 2009, so that's only 13 years of data (and there's no current study for this year).
Also, there have been lots of other design changes made to help trees; notably a drastic increase in soil volume per tree requirements; and a move, where practical, to trees in open trenches.
You have to compare like-to-like to some degree, and the worst tree age stats resulted from the old trees-in-square-boxes above ground; there is no equivalent of this design w/Silva Cells (there couldn't be).
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That said, we do know where the largest Silva Cell installations have been.
Bloor (Yorkville); Queen's Quay (west of Bay), The entire Waterfront Promenade east of Jarvis and Sugar Beach.
Within these, we know both Bloor and Queen's Quay had major failures in their first 2 years. But these were almost certainly not the fault of Silva Cells.
Rather, these were attributed first to incorrect species selection (London Plane); second, on Bloor, the contractor did not use the prescribed soil type/quality which adversely effected the trees, third trees were
initially planted in fall (also true on QQ); (fall planting can be ok, results vary by species, but spring is always preferable.
There was a study done on The Queensway which showed favourable results in 2016, but that study looked at data up to 2015, when trees would only have been six.
At that point, all the studied trees were alive, and those in Silva Cells were out performing those that were not as measured by assorted characteristics such as girth, height and leaf spread.
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If one looks at the Waterfront Promenade site, it has clearly been the best performer, along w/interior sections of Sugar Beach.
I don't have any reports/stats on those, but you can walk along and look at the average size/health for those trees and be aware that the majority are from the original planting, and that they have done extremely well in terms of growth vs norms for trees in hardscape settings in Toronto.
I had a quick look at The Queensway using Streetview:
It does appear to me that several have been replaced from that planting, but I don't have the exact spots for all the trees that were new that year.
But I did find a few that look to be the right age/size to be from that planting by comparing pictures:
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Overall, it would be my impression, that the combination of design changes for tree conditions are in fact boosting average age and growth.
But I think we'll need to see a study to confirm the details.
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The last big study of Toronto's street trees did not break down stats. by planting type (ie with or without silva cells or by soil volume)
But it did show a positive trendline on tree health vs 2018:
from: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2020/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-141368.pdf
Worth adding, during this time we saw the loss of most Ash Trees due to the Borer infestation.
That said, the key stat. above is the the 3rd from the top, proportion of trees greater than 30.6cm DBH. (Diameter at Breast Height)
This shows the average thickness of trees is increasing, which does suggest an increase in average age.
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PEC
New Member
Aquavato will be relocating from King Street East to the retail facing Sherbourne Street and there will be a dental office facing Front Street. Stay tuned for more.
