maestro said:
More height to encourage the developer to retain 258 Victoria isn't much of a carrot as the site would be incredibly narrow. This does reflect why we need a complete inventory of our building stock although I'm not convinced 258 Victoria would qualify for heritage status.
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As per the report, the property already has "heritage status", together w/its Dundas Square neighbours. It's the degree of retention-worthy status that's under discussion here. (And it's one of those reasons why, as I've said elsewhere, Toronto really needs a heritage inventory system that reflects "degree" to some extent, whether through letter rating or colour coding or whatever else.)

With that under consideration--while I'm as much a connoisseur of the c1920 brick industrial-loft aesthetic as any, let's not make *too* much of anything here, because for what it is, it'd probably be no less threatened anyplace else. Not to discourage retention; however, proceed w/caution, because otherwise, you're just feeding these kinds of message-boarding jerks and yahoos...

Didn't you know? Most people on this forum will consider a 10 year old junk yard an important "heritage structure" that helps give more character to the streetscape. It boggles my mind how a new development replacing an older development is ever a bad thing (unless of course the said older development truly has a historically important role).
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Of course, one assumes w/the final sentence, ahmad.m.atiya would probably gladly sacrifice even the main Dundas Square Hermant/HNR buildings...
 
khristopher said:
Anyway, if they are keeping two buildings, and destroying the 2 storey one, which are the two buildings they are keeping? HNR is one obviously, but the only other one there would be the brown one. So which is the other one they are keeping?
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Actually, the "one obviously" happens to be two--the original 1913 Hermant Building (the one with the terra cotta facing), and its high-rise brick Annex of 1930.
 
adma said:
As per the report, the property already has "heritage status", together w/its Dundas Square neighbours. It's the degree of retention-worthy status that's under discussion here. (And it's one of those reasons why, as I've said elsewhere, Toronto really needs a heritage inventory system that reflects "degree" to some extent, whether through letter rating or colour coding or whatever else.)
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Technically, heritage status has yet to be declared however, that wasn't my point. Sorry ofr the confusion but, I was refering to an inventory system with ratings when I suggested it may not qualify for retention.
 
ahmad.m.atiya said:
Didn't you know? Most people on this forum will consider a 10 year old junk yard an important "heritage structure" that helps give more character to the streetscape. It boggles my mind how a new development replacing an older development is ever a bad thing (unless of course the said older development truly has a historically important role).
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I'm curious how you would define 'history' vs heritage? I mean, this building would be okay if Sir John A had slept here or something?

Nobody is anti-development at this site. This is the heart of the city and an extremely appropriate place for development. My earlier point was that some parameters should have been in place to preserve some heritage properties that contribute to the character of the area. This would be fair to developers and they would have approached their designs from the start bearing this in mind. We've already seen so many creative and impressive developments where this has been the case. I'm thinking of Theatre Park on King West for instance which fits into its surroundings and still manages to add something new to the context. Why wouldn't something like that have worked at this location, leaving the gritty, urban theatre 'alley' type feel to Victoria Street yet adding density and height and an architectural/design statement to the skyline? Everybody wins. The city wins.
 
Hipster Duck said:
You're going to have to explain this to me: are new buildings better than old buildings? Is it the "newness" factor? Or do you just really love seeing buildings under construction; so much that you don't care what building was there or what building will replace it - you just want to see a construction site in action.
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Do you not stop to think that newer buildings are constructed because of economic viability (ie. they are more useful than what they replace)? :rolleyes:

Tewder said:
I'm curious how you would define 'history' vs heritage? I mean, this building would be okay if Sir John A had slept here or something?

Nobody is anti-development at this site. This is the heart of the city and an extremely appropriate place for development. My earlier point was that some parameters should have been in place to preserve some heritage properties that contribute to the character of the area. This would be fair to developers and they would have approached their designs from the start bearing this in mind. We've already seen so many creative and impressive developments where this has been the case. I'm thinking of Theatre Park on King West for instance which fits into its surroundings and still manages to add something new to the context. Why wouldn't something like that have worked at this location, leaving the gritty, urban theatre 'alley' type feel to Victoria Street yet adding density and height and an architectural/design statement to the skyline? Everybody wins. The city wins.
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A historical property is one where a school might take children on a fieldtrip to say "look, this is where Alexander Mackenzie slept in 1860." I just don't see what makes this building so important. It looks like something you'd see in Detroit.
 
ahmad.m.atiya said:
A historical property is one where a school might take children on a fieldtrip to say "look, this is where Alexander Mackenzie slept in 1860."
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Yeah, and a woman's a machine for having babies, no matter what those hysterical feminists'll tell you.
 
SP!RE said:
Somehow, your comment hasn't changed the fact that I like this building and don't want to see it go.
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I agree Spire..i feel for you, i wasnt to happy when they demolished one of my favourite heritage apt. building to make room for the new wing of Womens Hospital.

ken1.jpg
 
Hipster Duck said:
No, because "economic viability" is not the be-all and end-all of measuring the importance of things.
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That is right; it isn't. However, it IS a very significant factor in determining whether one building is replaced by another.

Unfortunately, in general for a new building to be built, others must be demolished. Of course we all would prefer that empty spaces such as parking lots be used first, but these are limited in number. At some point, probably sooner than most people think, the supply of parking lots in the downtown core will be gone. Then what? Are we to expect that no new buildings will ever be built downtown? Of course not, we must simply decide which buildings are to be preserved, and which ones are to be at risk of being demolished -- keeping in mind that some locations have a lot more potential economic value than others, and hence a building on that location would need to be of comparably greater intrinsic and historical value to justify being considered untouchable.

Speaking for myself, I think that given the location, this building is not worth protecting.
 
Mongo said:
That is right; it isn't. However, it IS a very significant factor in determining whether one building is replaced by another.

Unfortunately, in general for a new building to be built, others must be demolished. Of course we all would prefer that empty spaces such as parking lots be used first, but these are limited in number. At some point, probably sooner than most people think, the supply of parking lots in the downtown core will be gone. Then what? Are we to expect that no new buildings will ever be built downtown? Of course not, we must simply decide which buildings are to be preserved, and which ones are to be at risk of being demolished -- keeping in mind that some locations have a lot more potential economic value than others, and hence a building on that location would need to be of comparably greater intrinsic and historical value to justify being considered untouchable.

Speaking for myself, I think that given the location, this building is not worth protecting.
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The thing is that economic viability is narrowly defined when a decision is made, based on how much value a building has at that time. For example, when they tore down all of the high Victorian blocks to the west of the Flatiron building in the early 1960s, it was based on some assumption that a parking lot would generate more revenue than the upkeep of some old commercial buildings that probably didn't attract star tenants.

Of course, nobody would know that 50 years later, the rents in the Flatiron building would be equivalent to what you might find in Class A office space at King and Bay, and that the parking lot would have to be turned into a city park - in other words, a revenue-sapping piece of land.

And that's just from an economics perspective; I am not even accounting for aesthetics, culture, the environmental costs of landfilling, or the fact that the reason why many areas are so desirable in the first place is due to their mix of old buildings. My point is that a much broader valuation of the worth of a building needs to enter the equation.
 
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who would want to live in a city that has no sense of its history? sterile soulless streetscapes create sterile, soulless, robotic humans... this race to the bottom we are on where money makes every decision for us is absolutely dehumanizing. no, thanks.
 
Redroom Studios said:
who would want to live in a city that has no sense of its history? sterile soulless streetscapes create sterile, soulless, robotic humans... this race to the bottom we are on where money makes every decision for us is absolutely dehumanizing. no, thanks.
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I certainly would not want to live in such a city. Fortunately, Toronto is not that city.

"sterile soulless streetscapes create sterile, soulless, robotic humans"? Wow. Talk about absurdly overblown generalizations.
 
Well said

Redroom Studios said:
who would want to live in a city that has no sense of its history? sterile soulless streetscapes create sterile, soulless, robotic humans... this race to the bottom we are on where money makes every decision for us is absolutely dehumanizing. no, thanks.
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Nicely put, Redroom...and as much as I wish you were wrong, I think you're right...
...our single-minded (mindless?) society will be interesting readings for future (lets hope more enlightened) history students...
 
Mongo said:
I certainly would not want to live in such a city. Fortunately, Toronto is not that city.

"sterile soulless streetscapes create sterile, soulless, robotic humans"? Wow. Talk about absurdly overblown generalizations.
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I don't recall reading anywhere in his post that he said Toronto IS like that...I think he's concerned that we don't become that...hence the, "...race to the bottom..." reference.
 
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