[AlbertC]

I'm not a fan of the dark/black windows. They look alright on the restored historical facade but not so much on the main section. It appears overwhelming visually and also contrasts poorly with its neighbors along Front Street. Hopefully when clad, the brick will help balance out the heaviness of the window cladding. The grey spandrel on the upper portion doesn't look promising though.

 

[Peepers]

Wow! the reconstituted historical section looks amazing. It seems with heritage preservation the best results come about when a structure is completely dismantled and rebuilt brick-by-brick - instead of trying to restore the facade in situ. I hope the same quality of brick is used for the new structure.

 

[ganjavih]

Why can't more of this be done in key historic neighbourhoods in the city? It's looks fairly simple to do and shouldn't be too expensive. And it avoids that ugly faux look that you get with precast concrete pseudo-historical buildings such as French Quarter. Love it!

 

[interchange42]

Only concern about the Front page story..... says the build is "half" done...
That means occupancy in 2016---Yikes!!!!!!

"half" done doesn't mean literally 50% of the time needed to complete is still to go.

42

 

[JasonTangTO]

Here's the progress as of today!

 

[carturo15]

I guess the crain should be gone soon

 

[Philip Hayward]

Filling in the view at Front and Bay

 

[Miscreant]

Yeah, indeed it does. Nice! Once the Union renos are done this'll be quite nice.

 

[SkyJacked]

 

[Leirum]

Thanks SkyJacked...always love shots of the Berczy.

 

[gabe]

Great shots

 

[Jasonzed]

 

[Atlantis]

Jan 31

 

[SP!RE]

Uh oh. The silver part going up on the first setback looks like "spandrel done wrong" to me. AKA it looks like they designed the building to be a sleek, expanse of glass, but then filled in lots of the mullions along certain sections with spandrel as an afterthought.

The result looks unintentionally heavy, like a spandrel wall punctuated by vision glass/ windows, as opposed to a design that considered what the contrast between spandrel and glazing would look like before it was constructed.

I am not complaining about heavy spandrel use because it's actually a very positive feature from an eco-friendliness standpoint. But I prefer an integrated design process where the spandrel is considered as part of the design.

Anyways, I'll wait to see more of this stuff go up to bitch any more about it. In general, I've been a big fan of this project and how it treats its surroundings.

 

[taal]

No need to wait this thing isn't going to look great above the podium, thankfully from the street that part won't be too visible. From further back ...