Good riddance
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Let's see if NimbyTect+Partners can out do Concord Pacific's F+P's London development: http://www.principaltower.com/principal-tower/
 
I hate the building as much as the next guy, but it is chilling how methodically they rushed to tear down just the 'historically significant' parts of the building as fast fast they could to render it unimportant and will now take their sweet time bringing dow the rest of it.
 
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hawc said:
I hate the building as much as the next guy, but it is chilling how methodically they rushed to tear down just the 'historically significant' parts of the building as fast fast they could to render it unimportant and will now take their sweet time bringing dow the rest of it.
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maybe they have some tricks up their sleeve. Perhaps they dismantled it because its part of the design to be revealed. They just didn't want to be hindered by designations etc.

I could be way off. But they put care into taking down those elements, and that report initially said that the owners had refused to sell many times before. maybe they are in on a plan. Once there is nothing there but rubble perhaps they will release the renders of the design that in fact incorporate aspects of the original structure. Everyone will be shocked and surprised, and suddenly praising Mizrahi again and BAM it gets approved and sells really well because gosh darn that guy had a vision.

weirder things have happened
 
hawc said:
I hate the building as much as the next guy, but it is chilling how methodically they rushed to tear down just the 'historically significant' parts of the building as fast fast they could to render it unimportant and will now take their sweet time bringing dow the rest of it.
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A number of people have made this observation. But it seems much less "chilling" and much more practical, if you put yourself in the shoes of someone who has 300 million dollars invested in the project. If you had that much money invested, and you knew that there was a very significant chance that your project could be delayed for months or years because some people would appeal to cheap ornamental doo-dads like a stone with a crude carving of a deer's head, as a reason to preserve the building, and an 11th hour submission to have the building designated "heritage" had just been filed for that purpose, and you would stand to lose millions of your own real dollars as a result - how long would you wait to get rid of those features?
 
Yeah, one'd think that someone with millions invested would have been a bit more careful about PR and building bridges - and the delay due to heritage argument is wanting, considering the project hasn't even gone through the rezoning process and that's what's going to take a few years to sort through.

AoD
 
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hawc said:
I hate the building as much as the next guy, but it is chilling how methodically they rushed to tear down just the 'historically significant' parts of the building as fast fast they could to render it unimportant and will now take their sweet time bringing dow the rest of it.
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What are you talking about? The mirrored glass 3rd floor is still untouched and intact. The first two floors are required to temporarily hold it in place until this significant portion of the building can be worked into the design.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Yeah, one'd think that someone with millions invested would have been a bit more careful about PR and building bridges - and the delay due to heritage argument is wanting, considering the project hasn't even gone through the rezoning process and that's what's going to take a few years to sort through.

AoD
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Maybe, but every developer in the city saw what happened to Mirvish's project, it would be foolish to wait for the same treatment.

Mirvish (a name and family loved and respected in this city) approached the city with one of the world's leading architects (who also happens to be a son of Toronto) purposes an outstanding landmark project, sparing no expense, offering art galleries (originally to be 60,000 sq ft), educational facilities and studios, seminar rooms and a hall for public lectures. Even with all that, his project was severely scaled back and forced to be comple redesigned and significantly reduced in scale (costing a fortune in time and money). So much for good will.

That's a pretty impressive package to bring to the table and yet was not enough - do you think for one minute Mizrahi can or would bring such a package to the table? If not, you're better off asking for forgiveness than permission.
 
Big Daddy said:
Maybe, but every developer in the city saw what happened to Mirvish's project, it would be foolish to wait for the same treatment.

Mirvish (a name and family loved and respected in this city) approached the city with one of the world's leading architects (who also happens to be a son of Toronto) purposes an outstanding landmark project, sparing no expense, offering art galleries (originally to be 60,000 sq ft), educational facilities and studios, seminar rooms and a hall for public lectures. Even with all that, his project was severely scaled back and forced to be comple redesigned and significantly reduced in scale (costing a fortune in time and money). So much for good will.

That's a pretty impressive package to bring to the table and yet was not enough - do you think for one minute Mizrahi can or would bring such a package to the table? If not, you're better off asking for forgiveness than permission.
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Weak argument, considering the main issue at the end of the day isn't heritage structures in the Mirvish case (where even the revised scheme would have seen most of the buildings on the footprint demolished) but density - and there is precedent in the form of 1BE in this context.

As to foolishness - let's put it this way - you are seeing minimal opposition to height in Adam Vaughan's old ward, and his record in smoothing over development is second to none. I'd say unilateralism is far, far more foolish a course of action.

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Weak argument, considering the main issue at the end of the day isn't heritage structures in the Mirvish case (where even the revised scheme would have seen most of the buildings on the footprint demolished) but density - and there is precedent in the form of 1BE in this context.

As to foolishness - let's put it this way - you are seeing minimal opposition to height in Adam Vaughan's old ward, and his record in smoothing over development is second to none. I'd say unilateralism is far, far more foolish a course of action.

AoD
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Density? There must be 50 buildings under construction downtown. In addition there are literally dozens of towers proposed around the same area and we know there is more to come, what did we accomplish by removing one of Mirvish's towers? all we accomplished was the loss of what could have been a world class museum of contemporary art and much of the public facilities that were going to be incorporated in the podiums of the towers. Meanwhile the "density" continues all around this site.
 
greenleaf said:
"Fallout" from the Stollery's demolition. They are asking the province to amend the Ontario Heritage Act just for Toronto. I kind of doubt this will fly, but who knows. It's worth a try.

Catching Up with the Past: Improving the City's Heritage Preservation Framework - by Councillor Josh Matlow, seconded by Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam
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Matlow and Wong-Tam. Why am I not surprised? This whole thing is the city's fault anyways, so there shouldn't be any "fallout." If they thought the building was truly worthy of designation (IMO, it was not), they should've moved on it a long time ago.
 
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