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Fear and Loathing: Brand Spanking New Nabes

19K views 140 replies 23 participants last post by  Elnerico 
#1 ·
Figured I would make a thread to post photos from some of the instant neighbourhoods that have sprung up in the past decade. Everyone has strong opinions on them, but not everyone has actually visited them in real life. So, as an alternative to Google Streetscape, firstly I present the area around Pinnacle/Success:





































 
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#90 ·






Down the somewhat weird and a bit morbid St Terry Fox Way....



Actually, not a bad little collection of residential units:











What can I say? No signs of the predicted ghetto life; everyone was young, nicely dressed and apparently enjoying walking in the sunshine, pushing baby carriages, walking dogs in the park, or playing soccer on the pitch.
 
#91 ·
Sounds like the swinging singles that lived in St. James Town.

Because these are condos, it will take longer for the transformation, but it will happen.
 
#93 ·
LOL! Ummm....no. :lol:

One is multi-purpose and right in the thick of it (Union Station, ACC, SouthCore).

The is in the middle of nowhere.
 
#94 ·
Okay, was just wondering why one is supposedly such a failure and the other supposedly a smashing success when to me the projects seem so similar. Seems like splitting hairs a bit, to me, for I really don't see any reason for either to fail, or either to turn into a ghetto. Both seem quite successful to my untrained eye.... but I am not involved in the business. Both are downtown and within easy walking distance of versatile entertainment areas. City Place is a short walk to Roger's Stadium (and King Street and the Harbourfront), and Maple Leaf is of course right next to the Air Canada Centre and also not far from the Harbourfront.
 
#101 · (Edited)
The key differences are use, quality, location, and brand.

MLS has retail, hotel, office, and residential, all in one package. Such diversity in use is great planning for all day traffic and livability.

My own observation is that MLS is a clear notch above CP in terms of design and materials. No use in debating this one since the design is subjective, and none of us has the bill of materials from the architect.

Location? MLS is attached to the ACC, has direct access to Union Station, and the PATH network. You can go to a game, the office, shopping for miles, without putting on your coat. CP is trapped between the railway trench and the Gardiner with fewer connections to the city. You walk, or get stuck with the suburban inflow on Spadina.

And for brand, that's huge. One is attached to one of the best brands in Canada (even if they can't make the playoffs - I'm not going to defend their record, but have observed that the brand is solid - they are the most valuable team in the league). MLS also have Le Germain, Longo's, Real Sports, etc. CP has a Firkin pub, some dry cleaners, a bank? Big deal. Concord-Adex itself seems to be the definition of disposable brand.

And the last thing I would point out is the urban fabric around each.

MLS feels urban. Cross York Street, and not so much, so MLS really benefits from its proximity to ACC/Union/PATH. CP feels like vertical suburban towers in the park crap that we know does not work. Each of those towers should be surrounded with a MLS style podium.
 
#100 ·
In an organic built environment, that is a good thing (having the odd run down building with lower rents) for the very reason you have stated. Not so sure it is healthly on a large scale.
 
#97 ·
^^ Look at how dirty and stained the concrete roof of the Fox & Fiddle is. It's not even 5 years old and it already looks terrible. Concrete ages so badly, yet so many developers use it on their buildings. They need to at least give it a good paint job, like they do the underside of balconies, on nicer condos.
 
#105 ·
Hold on - I said MLS is a notch above CP, not stellar.

My argument is that MLS is a solid mixed use development. If CityPlace had a dozen variants of MLS, it would be in much better shape (I might even say that I like it).

MLS is like the Manulife Centre (MC) - mixed use, and not particularly attractive.

CityPlace (CP) is like St. James Town (St.JT) - single purpose for multiple blocks.

Both hold great similarities really.

MLS is about as far away from CP and MC is from St. JT.

CP and St. JT have "green space", pedestrian spaces, limited car access, etc.

We have a modern era reproduction of something we did 40 years ago.

I expect the same results.

In fact, I think St. James Town has more going for it than CityPlace does.

For starters, it has a subway stop. Then there is no highway to the south. And no railway to the north. Lots of cool nabes around it with no physical barriers. Great access to greenspace.

You know what? In going through this discussion, I have convinced myself that CityPlace is already worse than St. James Town.

We don't need to wait for its demise - its already there. :)
 
#109 ·
In fact, I think St. James Town has more going for it than CityPlace does.

For starters, it has a subway stop. Then there is no highway to the south. And no railway to the north. Lots of cool nabes around it with no physical barriers. Great access to greenspace.

You know what? In going through this discussion, I have convinced myself that CityPlace is already worse than St. James Town.

We don't need to wait for its demise - its already there. :)
That's funny because I'm looking for an apartment and the only newish ones I can afford seem to be in City Place. It's cheaper than the listings I've seen around St Clair or Eglinton, but still I refuse to consider it.Meanwhile I would totally go for St Jamestown if it weren't for the roach infestations. Someone build some real "starter" condos there!
 
#106 ·
As I've said time and time again, Jamestown was completed in the late 1960s, on the cusp of suburban flight and urban decay & disinvestment. Over the next decade, Toronto lost more than 100,000 people (16% of the population), typically leaving apartments for new single-family houses. Today, the inner-city is booming - with no signs of stopping any time soon - and property values along with it. People are paying absurd prices for any little space they can get, and so even if Cityplace is a not-so-great development...that simply means that people will spend less to live there than they would in a more desirable neighbourhood.

If there is going to be any issue leading to its decline, its going to be due to building quality rather than the planning or architecture of the neighbourhood - most people don't really care about that sort of thing, they just want a decent home.
 
#107 · (Edited)
Using this logic, St. James Town should be enjoying the boom too, with landlords investing in their properties to get higher rents. Last time I checked, the average income was around $22K.

One of the underlying points here is that the planning is critical to a successful neighbourhood. St. James Town and Regent Park are two recent examples in our history where poor urban design has led to urban decay. Throughout suburban Toronto there are numerous examples as well. CityPlace is following a similar pattern.

Find me a similar format that has been around for decades that is not low income (and to be clear, there is nothing wrong with low income, but low income neighbourhoods are something that we want to avoid for obvious social, economic, and health reasons where it is difficult to properly administer services).

Mixed use people. Mixed use.
 
#113 ·
You are the one that started this thread that is designed to provoke, and you continue to push the buttons with Pleasantville pictures! :)
 
#111 ·
I know that some people have already convinced themselves that Cityplace is already a Jamestown, but I think this is wishful thinking and fantasy. Dense urban living does not equate to slum (otherwise most of Manhattan would be a slum), and the urban design is no "poorer" than around MLS which he praises to the skies. CityPlace is designed as starter homes for young professionals; it is not aimed at seniors and empty nesters. Should every condo building going up in Toronto only be aimed at the high end market? I think that would be a tad elitist.
I'm surprised how comfortable the neighbourhood feels to walk about, personally. It has turned out better than I had expected and the project is still not completed.
 
#112 ·
Remeber that you are the one that asked me to compare CityPlace to MLS.

Money has nothing to do with it. We should not be aiming for high or low end neighbourhoods. Density also has nothing to do with it. Mixed is the goal, be it highrise, lowrise, whatever. The railway lands should have been parcelled off and developed.

Master Planned Communities really means Maximum Profits Communities.
 
#117 ·
I agree with InTheBeach that Cityplace is going to age very poorly. Some of it is location: despite being downtown it's sandwiched between the Gardiner and multiple rail lines. Some of it is design: single use, lack of retail.

I don't know if it will become like St. James Town. The units are so much smaller it will be hard to fit a family of 6 or 7 that recently immigrated here. However, it's only a matter of time before the maintenance issues build up and the investors and the poor individuals who bought units for themselves are unwilling/unable to pay skyrocketing maintenance fees. I'd wager many people will have to sell at a loss and by then the developer will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Btw, people referring to Jamestown actually mean St. James Town. Jamestown is a neighbourhood in Rexdale.
 
#124 ·
So, it will be primarily a residential neighbourhood instead of primarily a commercial neighbourhood. Is it the end of the world to have a neighbourhood where people live that is not a massive draw for an influx of people to come and shop at every day? Take away the hockey arena, and what is left as an attraction around MLS? People throng in for an event, and zoom out once the event is over. Very few of them will contribute anything to the neighbourhood around the Air Canada Centre. The traffic is nasty around there during the nights a show or game is on.
 
#126 ·
After viewing a Manhattan thread recently I finally realised why these areas seem lacking despite their high density. It's not that they're new, as I don't mind modern architecture. It's that the area doesn't have any urban fabric. It seems strictly like a collection of individual buildings rather than a part of a city that just happens to be composed to individual parts. Despite the dozens of 20+ story buildings, there are virtually no 20+ story streetwalls. Of course, we associate this with older areas because it was more common 50-100 years ago than it is today, but there's nothing preventing such a setup in our modern era.

If Cityplace and the areas been Union and the Harbourfront had been composed mainly of streetwalls of 15-30 stories with taller buildings sticking up in prominent locations, it would have been 10x better. Currently, despite its density, it seems a bit Houstonish with big podiums, buildings set back from the street, and gaps between very tall highrises.

Just imagine if it had been built more to this scale (obviously ignoring the architecture and focusing only on the arrangement and massing):






http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=203225



The planners would have to take the sun into consideration when designing the area to maximizing sunlight, but that would be easy enough to do.
 
#127 ·
After viewing a Manhattan thread recently I finally realised why these areas seem lacking despite their high density. It's not that they're new, as I don't mind modern architecture. It's that the area doesn't have any urban fabric. It seems strictly like a collection of individual buildings rather than a part of a city that just happens to be composed to individual parts. Despite the dozens of 20+ story buildings, there are virtually no 20+ story streetwalls. Of course, we associate this with older areas because it was more common 50-100 years ago than it is today, but there's nothing preventing such a setup in our modern era.

That's what happens when a large brownfield site is handed over to a single developer. In order to get that organic high-rise development like in Manhattan, the government would need to build the infrastructure (roads, utilities), then divide up the parcels of land into small portions and sell them off individually. This is preferable from an urban standpoint, but I'm not sure how feasible it would be.

That said, a master planned community doesn't need to be monotonous and inhumane, they can still turn out as attractive, pleasant neighbourhoods through thoughtful streetscaping, architecture, and scale. And they can even have certain advantages over organic development, like coherence of design or a sense of grandeur. A recent example of a well done, full neighbourhood built from scratch would be Vancouver's Olympic Village. The currently u/c communities of the West Don Lands and East Bayfront in Toronto look promising too.


_8__3444 by Glotman Simpson, on Flickr


Olympic Village by entheos_fog, on Flickr
 
#128 ·
Really how can you show photos of 400 year old Manhattan, one of the wealthiest most desirable and exorbitantly priced pieces of architecture in the world, and then say:
:"(obviously ignoring the architecture and focusing only on the arrangement and massing)"? It is like showing a picture of a naked David Beckham and saying ignore what you see and just imagine how tall he is. And then to compare that to an unfinished mid range condo community that has gone up in a decade over what used to be a brownfield? How self defeating is that?
I'd hazard a guess that pretty much any neighbourhood in Toronto that is 200 years old is going to be far more interesting, so I don't think we have to go all the way to New York to find one.

And, sorry Monkey.. O Village looks like a cage to me despite the fact it is so studiously "Textbook Urban Studies 2010 ". I'd no sooner want to be trapped living in there than in City Place. Perhaps I am the only one but I find it equally monotonous.
 
#129 ·
Really how can you show photos of 400 year old Manhattan, one of the wealthiest most desirable and exorbitantly priced pieces of architecture in the world, and then say:
:"(obviously ignoring the architecture and focusing only on the arrangement and massing)"? It is like showing a picture of a naked David Beckham and saying ignore what you see and just imagine how tall he is. And then to compare that to an unfinished mid range condo community that has gone up in a decade over what used to be a brownfield? How self defeating is that?
I'd hazard a guess that pretty much any neighbourhood in Toronto that is 200 years old is going to be far more interesting, so I don't think we have to go all the way to New York to find one.
If you wanted to provide and example of a person of a certain height and there were few if any other people of that height in the world, then posting a picture of that person and requesting that you ignore their other characteristics and focus on their height would be a reasonable request. Are you that completely unwilling or unable to use your imagination?

Yes, there are plenty of interesting neighbourhoods in Toronto, but my intention was to envision ways developers could have provided as much housing as in the current Cityplace on the same amount of land and on a similar budget, while making it more enjoyable than the current product. That could not be done if built on the scale of Toronto's 200 year old areas since they're predominantly lowrise. The fact is, there are few areas in the world that have extended streetwalls of 15+ story buildings, and none in Toronto that I'm aware of (200 years old or otherwise). But there is enough density in Cityplace to have allowed for such if developers (or city planners as Monkey mentioned) had done this with the right planning.

Honestly, when I picture this, I do not picture ornate stone buildings like those in the pictures, and I don't imagine it having the same grand, rustic charm of Manhattan. I picture it the same materials and similar styles as are present in the current developments, but with different massing (although more variety obviously wouldn't hurt), Instead of fewer, taller towers in the 40-50 story range, there would be more, shorter towers in the 15-25 story range, with a few taller ones sticking out at key areas. I'm absolutely not envisioning the reproduction of ornate historic architecture.

What's really self defeating is assuming it's impossible to develop things in a way that you want simply because it's never been done or there are no recent examples. I'd say the biggest obstacle is the current mindset of developers who focus solely on things like green space, setbacks, podiums, etc. as they think that makes the areas more liveable, when in my view, having a cohesive urban fabric is just as, if not more, important.

I realise that you're very pragmatic, and as a result you seem to hate the idea of hypothetical thought exercises that would require a person to imagine something unlikely to ever happen. I admit such thinking can be frustrating or depressing for some, but for others it's interesting and exciting as it allows one to get a glimpse of things he would otherwise never get to see (even if it is only in his mind). Honestly, to limit one's mind to only seeing and accepting things as they exist rather than imagining what could be (or could have been) is a waste of human intellect.
 
#133 ·
Which is wildly different from Cityplace, right?



Regarding the sidewalks, I disagree. Toronto buildings were built back further from the sidewalk, especially any that were residential houses. These were built with the garden in front of the house, instead of the back. Thus we have many outdoor patios in front of pubs nowadays that we would not have if the building was built right up to the sidewalk.

In any case, Cityplace has to be judged by walking around inside it, and not by looking at the skyline, or googling up images. I will repost earlier photos taken almost a year ago during a lot of construction. Before anyone gets their hopes too high, Manhattan it 'ain't. It is what it is, and nothing more. Neither perfect planning, nor the disaster it is habitually made out to be in Toronto:





Note that this section is built right up to the sidewalk like your preferred example of the Olympic Village:














Down the somewhat weird and a bit morbid St Terry Fox Way....



Actually, not a bad little collection of residential units:











What can I say? No signs of the predicted ghetto life; everyone was young, nicely dressed and apparently enjoying walking in the sunshine, pushing baby carriages, walking dogs in the park, or playing soccer on the pitch.
 
#137 ·
Regarding the sidewalks, I disagree. Toronto buildings were built back further from the sidewalk, especially any that were residential houses. These were built with the garden in front of the house, instead of the back. Thus we have many outdoor patios in front of pubs nowadays that we would not have if the building was built right up to the sidewalk.
I think my biggest issue isn't so much how far back the buildings are from the sidewalk, but rather that there are such large lot sizes causing gaps in the streetwall making the area seem disjointed. Thinner buildings without large podiums would be preferable. Or perhaps buildings that are shorter and wider, fronting the street.

In any case, Cityplace has to be judged by walking around inside it, and not by looking at the skyline, or googling up images. I will repost earlier photos taken almost a year ago during a lot of construction. Before anyone gets their hopes too high, Manhattan it 'ain't. It is what it is, and nothing more. Neither perfect planning, nor the disaster it is habitually made out to be in Toronto:
But... That's exactly how I'm judging it. If you recall, this is where I stayed when I visited for a week in 2010 and rather enjoyed it. The area could have been better, but I would still live there... unlike some people. ;)

But I'm definitely not one of the people who thinks it's some kind of abomination. It's nice, but it could have been better. And perhaps still can be.
 
#140 ·
I've seen that last picture before, and I honestly didn't even know that area is former rail yard. It just looks like regular urban fabric that happens to have newer than usual buildings!
 
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