Brans89 said:
Please read in article right. It does not say the project is on hold. Given the recession things are taking a little longer than expected.
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Its on hold. It ain't moving and without some major tenants, it may never move. Its not quite kicked the bucket, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible...but it may end up being an ex-parrot.
 
I called the Woodbine Live offices and they told me the project is going forward. They said are working on the project and construction begins in the spring.
 
neubilder said:
Whether Rob Ford deserves credit for it or not, the point is he took credit for it.
“I know how to deal with CEOs of huge corporations — that’s how I landed the largest development in Toronto’s history,” Ford, then councillor for Ward 2 Etobicoke North, told a newspaper last fall. “Woodbine Live! — I did that.”
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And to reverse things: any hand Suzan Hall and Kyle Rae had in it might have been more by way of necessary salvage job. They were perhaps pinch-hitting for Ford out of necessity, because Ford himself couldn't handle it...
 
Brans89 said:
I called the Woodbine Live offices and they told me the project is going forward. They said are working on the project and construction begins in the spring.
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They also said that construction was going to start 2 years ago. Care to put a little money on spring 2012?
 
Marko said:
Further, I'm not surprised in any way by anything a politician may do. They are all bought and paid for in some way or another and even those with the sincerest of intentions are open to influence - so I dont immediately make the leap to conclusions about corruption or hidden agendas.
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So explain why politicians who didn't care at all about the Waterfront all of a sudden do, and it must be done as quickly as possible by an agency that the Fords control. It cannot be done by an agency with control and costs split three ways with the city, province, and federal government. It must happen now and sign over the land now to us.

The truth is that in today's world and throughout history, it has always taken a little heung-yau to get things done.
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Which is why things are getting done now on the waterfront where they weren't before. Before you had one level of government controlling the land, one controlling the infrastructure, and one controlling the water.

In free markets, money makes things happen, not ideas.
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Right, so if Waterfront Toronto believes it will take 25 years to develop the port lands, City Place has taken 12 so far, and the Fords believe they can do it in 10... who is delusional?

If money is needed to get the city back on track and if money can be generated through an alternate plan of the portlands being executed, I'm OK with that as long as the end result is a good one.
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It won't be a good result. They got rid of the car registration tax. Is the city back on track now? They canceled Transit City. Is the end result looking much better? They are going to sell the land and loose control of what gets developed and use the money to plug a budget hole. Can that be good long term?

That's why I wanted to see the vision and not jump to conclusions that it was a power centre outlet mall and cheeseball midway that thaey had in mind, and they don't.
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The renders don't matter if they sell the land off before doing all the steps Waterfront Toronto did first because they will be in no position to dictate the end result.

Besides, even if they did, they don't have the means or ability to get that in there as I believe there are enough checks and balances in place to ensure that was is put in is not schlock.
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The check and balance was an agency run by not one pair of brothers but three levels of government. What checks and balances are there when the boards of most city agencies have been gutted and replaced with Ford approved oversight?

As I said before, I don't think the Ford's care one way or the other what goes down there architecturally and that they're happy to defer those decisions to others who know better - in other words I think they know what they don't know.
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So why didn't they defer to Waterfront Toronto? The plan for the Port Lands won an architectural design competition with 18 entries. Rather than listen to the expert panel who selected them they hired a guy to draw their plan... because they think they know better?

They are talking cuts cuts cuts from every department in the city, and now they are focused on the waterfront which didn't cost them anything other than the land. Why are they focused on that when it wasn't an expense to them?

What do we do when in five years the land has sold for X billions and there is nothing happening, maybe a few big box stores? Do we spend 2X billions to expropriate and try again? Will people be upset at the current government for squandering opportunity more, or will they be more upset at the future government that jacks up taxes at a huge rate to be able to buy back land and do things properly?
 
Please, keep this on topic, which is Woodbine Live, not the Waterfront. There are other threads for arguing about how the Fords are destroying democracy.
 
Given the mayoral regime, the overall silence on the scheme is truly deafening. (And I suppose the Fords would figure some way to blame City Council on Woodbine Live!'s falling off radar.)
 
It may be soon time to "Old Yeller" this project, it is not looking optimistic.

Conflict between owners jeopardizes Woodbine Live

It’s been promoted as a billion-dollar project that will bring more than 9,000 jobs to a needy corner of the city, but Woodbine Live, the entertainment and retail project touted by Mayor Rob Ford as proof of his ability to attract investment, is in jeopardy of losing its tax breaks from the city.....
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ers-jeopardizes-woodbine-live/article2425766/
 
This project is D.O.A. The Ford brothers are delirious in believing that Rexdale can become a destination someday.
 
I agree the surrounding area isn't prime. But where else is there so much land that we can have a race track? I'd like to at least poll urban toronto ppl to see if they want a race track to survive or if they are okay with just a casino, do they want both, if so in the same place? Or do they not want any casino. Personally I want both and ideally in the same location. This is why I would have supported woodbine live. In all seriousness is there any other place that can hold both that's close to the city. I think woodbine is 160 acres big.
 
Brans89 said:
I called the Woodbine Live offices and they told me the project is going forward. They said are working on the project and construction begins in the spring.
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Damn, Brans89 never took up my bet that construction wouldn't be starting now.
 
I'd be more concerned about his worship trying to give even more lucrative tax breaks and incentives in order to ensure the project remain in life support, so as to keep his bragging rights on the file untarnished. Council will check that one however.

That, or all of a sudden the project gets referred to as "David Miller's pet project" or "Suzan Hall spearheaded that one".

AoD
 
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