buildup said:
Im surprised at some comments here. Areas seem rather cosy and once things are finished, and the construction at the Yorkville and Avenue is complete this might work out reasonably well. I spend a fair bit of time there, it will take some patience. They have some decent tenants to build around - Whole Foods, Equinox, TNT, inteesting food court. Seeing some creativity every day.
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It's rather difficult to get excited about the current incarnation if you happen to be one of those people who remember the original Hazelton Lanes. It was special.
 
freshcutgrass said:
It's rather difficult to get excited about the current incarnation if you happen to be one of those people who remember the original Hazelton Lanes. It was special.
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That, and the exterior architecture is just patently horrendous. Maybe the worst recent example of slapping a random, out-of-place, contemporary addition onto an older building anywhere in the city. I'm all for contemporary additions when done well, but this is a master class in how-not-to.
 
It does fit a trend though doesn't it....all the most interesting retail malls in the city (all from that era too) are now unrecognizable...and not in a good way.

Village by the Grange
Market Square
Queen's Quay Terminal
Eaton Centre
and now Hazelton Lanes
 
The new sections of Sherway Gardens, Square One, and Yorkdale all look similar. They're pleasant, but there's no real sense of place. Try to guess which mall is which from these photos that @interchange42 posted in their respective threads:

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They're similar with light coloured flooring, two-storey ceilings, white walls, minimal faux greenery, curving corridors, and skylights/clerestory windows. The first person to guess the malls in the correct order will get a "like".
 
^Those pics could be any newly built or renovated mall in America/Canada. They all look the same now.
 
junctionist said:
The new sections of Sherway Gardens, Square One, and Yorkdale all look similar. They're pleasant, but there's no real sense of place. Try to guess which mall is which from these photos that @interchange42 posted in their respective threads:

29267829354_f3d2ff6911_h.jpg


dsc04026-jpg.79173


10dsc07344-jpg.89620


They're similar with light coloured flooring, two-storey ceilings, white walls, minimal faux greenery, curving corridors, and skylights/clerestory windows. The first person to guess the malls in the correct order will get a "like".
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Top: Square One
Middle: Sherway Gardens
Bottom: Yorkdale
 
I get that they're all similar, (like many of our condos going up today), but I can tell them all apart, like I can the condos. It's the trained vs. the untrained eye thing; I get that not everyone sees the differences. Those who can tell them apart, can because they care about the small details, but I know it's not reasonable to expect that everyone will care enough to see the differences.

I'm not sure the similar-look thing is new though. Walk into some suburban mall that hasn't seen the reinvestment that these three have, and you can pretty instantly tell what decade they're from based on how they look: every decade produces its own feel, and this decade the money is going into two-storey high spaces with natural light up top.

42
 
interchange42 said:
I get that they're all similar, (like many of our condos going up today), but I can tell them all apart, like I can the condos. It's the trained vs. the untrained eye thing; I get that not everyone sees the differences. Those who can tell them apart, can because they care about the small details, but I know it's not reasonable to expect that everyone will care enough to see the differences.

I'm not sure the similar-look thing is new though. Walk into some suburban mall that hasn't seen the reinvestment that these three have, and you can pretty instantly tell what decade they're from based on how they look: every decade produces its own feel, and this decade the money is going into two-storey high spaces with natural light up top.

42
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The point is that it's not easy to do at first unless you make the effort to look at fine details. You noticed the fine details because you wanted to take interesting photos to share with others. Most people won't make that effort. They need distinctive features in the architecture, landscaping, artwork, and finishes.

Some malls had character beyond the decade they were originally constructed. The Eaton Centre and Sherway Gardens are 1970s malls which were quite different from one another, with noticeable differences beyond the urban vs. suburban massing. Sherway Gardens had the landscaped courts and fountains as well as the distinctive food court with its soaring tent-like roofs. The Eaton Centre had its glazed galleria, glass entranceway on Dundas, and high-tech flourishes like exposed ductwork painted white.

Even if many malls from every era are similar, we had distinctive malls. Their identities haven't only been changing with the times. They've been slowly homogenized, with distinctive features like the Eaton Centre's railings or glass entranceway at Yonge and Dundas removed. The new additions reflect that unfortunate trend towards homogenization of once distinctive Toronto malls.
 
junctionist said:
Their identities haven't only been changing with the times. They've been slowly homogenized, with distinctive features like the Eaton Centre's railings or glass entranceway at Yonge and Dundas removed. The new additions reflect that unfortunate trend towards homogenization of once distinctive Toronto malls.
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This also has a lot to do with management. CF used to be owned by the Bronfmans, who went out of their way to hire architects like Mies and Zeidler to design show-stopping projects. CF is now just a soulless pension fund management giant, where they don't know or care about these things. This is why they will literally spend tens of millions of dollars dumbing-down their own buildings.
 
I would give CF credit for doing a much better job leasing space when they expand/renovate. Omers seems to have a "build it and they will come" approach, which doesn't seem to be working too well at the moment.
 
Hideously ugly exterior.

Looks like they stripped the steel siding off of a factory and re-stuck it to the front of this abomination. Talk about looking "cheap 2016". This will age horrifically.
 
interchange42 said:
I'm not sure the similar-look thing is new though.
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It's not, but the point is that Hazelton Lanes used to very much have a sense of place (and its layout and configuration and expression were all tied to its site/location) and now, arguably, it has had any of its place stripped away. In that sense, I would argue that the renovations are a great step back.
 
modernizt said:
It's not, but the point is that Hazelton Lanes used to very much have a sense of place (and its layout and configuration and expression were all tied to its site/location) and now, arguably, it has had any of its place stripped away. In that sense, I would argue that the renovations are a great step back.
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I agree with you to a point. Hazelton Lanes was an onomatopoeia of shopping malls; its original built form was like a lane. The recent renovation has removed any sense of that original place (much like the Sherway Reno has removed is original gardens aspect). That being said - it is possible that the current demands of retail tenants, especially international retail tenants (those which were in the mall in its late 80's heydey) have moved on considerably. While a different landlord could have perhaps found a way to balance the original beauty of the laneway design with the demand of retailers... it is clear that something had to be changed to try and make MHGA (Make Hazelton Great Again).
 
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