***Waterfront Development Thread***

[kyser soze]

I'm going to this... Anyone else on here going?

[ScrapeTheSky]

Originally Posted by Tuscani01

You know what... I never thought about that. It would be a cool idea too, but that would cost a hell of a lot of money.

If a new subway was built, the excavated dirt or whatever you call it could be used to fill in waterfront and make a park or something. I think that'd be great. Remember Ontario Place was built that way.

[InTheBeach]

Originally Posted by kettal

I think it would be pointless to remove Gardner Expressway, because the train tracks will just continue being a barrier just the same.

The best solution to the waterfront barrier problem would be to move the waterfront. Toronto has been doing it for 100 years, so once more wouldn't hurt.

Just extend the land 100m or so into Lake Ontario, don't build any streets on it, and it can be beautiful.

And after we do this, we would have a place to bury the Gardiner!

[valantino]

Just extend the land 100m or so into Lake Ontario

what to do with the islands then

[megatower]

this is of topic, but i wanted to know why does the Canadian flag flicker during commercials and when you are watching TV shows ?, to me that's f in weird. it's like Canada is hypnotized on there own flag
could someone explain to me what the hell does that happen

[Jaye101]

What are you talking about?

[phunky]

why does the flag flicker? huh? lol...

[Taller, Better]

Originally Posted by megatower

this is of topic, but i wanted to know why does the Canadian flag flicker during commercials and when you are watching TV shows ?, to me that's f in weird. it's like Canada is hypnotized on there own flag
could someone explain to me what the hell does that happen

Are you speaking Alcoholic? I don't understand what you are talking about.

[SD]

Originally Posted by phunky

i totally agree. there should be a lot more excitement around it, but really... the plan kinda sucks. it needs to be much more extravagant. the plan that won is BOOORING.

It should be kept in mind that this plan is just that - a preliminary plan for the basic design of the central waterfront area. What the buildings will look like, etc. isn't something anyone knows. There is still much to be added and a lot to be done with regards to the aesthetics of the development.

[Filip]

Originally Posted by Taller, Better

Are you speaking Alcoholic? I don't understand what you are talking about.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[monkeyronin]

Originally Posted by megatower

this is of topic, but i wanted to know why does the Canadian flag flicker during commercials and when you are watching TV shows ?, to me that's f in weird. it's like Canada is hypnotized on there own flag
could someone explain to me what the hell does that happen

Cos' you're doing too much drugs. happens to all of us

[phunky]

Originally Posted by SD

It should be kept in mind that this plan is just that - a preliminary plan for the basic design of the central waterfront area. What the buildings will look like, etc. isn't something anyone knows. There is still much to be added and a lot to be done with regards to the aesthetics of the development.

That is true. I never thought of it that way. Thanks.

[Jaye101]

On the waterfront: Toronto's reinvention

January 26, 2007
Christopher Hume

The biggest problem at the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. these days might be where to find a space big enough to hold the crowds that show up for its public meetings.

The most recent, which was held Tuesday evening at the Radisson Hotel, was packed to the rafters. Hundreds were on hand to listen and ask questions about the TWRC's central waterfront plan.

That's the scheme being prepared by a team of landscape architects headed by Rotterdam-based Adriaan Geuze of West 18. His group won an international competition last summer and is now hard at work.

Though details are far from settled, the basic ideas of the West 18 proposal were given a dry run last August. The most notable and controversial aspect of the experiment was the closing of two lanes of Queen's Quay Blvd. between Yonge St. and Spadina Rd. Many drivers didn't like it, but once Geuze's plan is implemented, it will be permanent.

Though residents worry about the usual issues – parking and traffic flow – the response, Geuze reports, "has been very good."

As far as Mayor David Miller is concerned, the central waterfront remake ranks as a top priority. That's not hard to understand; the chief magistrate wants visible results so Torontonians can see for themselves that waterfront revitalization is a reality.

Sadly, construction isn't likely to begin in earnest until early 2008. Though Geuze hopes that he can get going on a bridge (across a slip) this year, the immediate tasks now are a feasibility study and the inevitable environmental assessment. These will take months and dissipate whatever momentum is left after last summer.

But Toronto is not a city known for being nimble – or bold; no one could accuse us of rushing into things. Don't forget the funding for HtO, the "urban beach" that will open next spring on the waterfront, dates back to the creation of Harbourfront more than 30 years ago.

Fortunately Geuze and his team, eternal optimists all, are not easily dissuaded. The discussion is all about creating a "village atmosphere" on the edge of the lake. They envision a "streetscape with small-scale buildings and uses" in the area west of Queen's Quay Terminal on the site of a parking lot.

"Toronto is a tourist destination," Geuze says, "but there's tough competition in the world. I think the waterfront has the potential to be made coherent and dynamic and attract people to the city. We still have to make connections with the city and within the waterfront. Right now, the Toronto waterfront is very underused; but it's an excellent place to invest money."

These links are critical to whatever happens; this means that at some point the city must decide what to do with the Gardiner Expressway – leave it as is or take it down – not to mention the railway corridor. Just last year the TWRC released a report that recommended demolishing the raised highway from Spadina to the Don Valley Parkway. But the issue is so emotional that no one should be holding their breath for action. And despite the mayor's brave talk about renewing the waterfront and completing the city, he has not shown much enthusiasm for tackling the Gardiner.

The West 8 project will carry on regardless; but at a time when cities everywhere are reinventing themselves through their waterfronts, the need to do something spectacular is greater than ever. No longer is it enough just to go through the motions; Canadian cities have been slipping behind their international counterparts for a decade or longer.

Above all, the waterfront can be the vehicle that allows Toronto to relaunch itself onto the world stage as a city that matters, that has something to offer and that demands attention. The transformation wouldn't end with the central waterfront plan, but it could begin there.

chume@thestar.ca

[DrT]

Good news that the TWRC is still moving forward.
"construction isn't likely to begin in earnest until early 2008." --- only one year, that is good news also.

[kyser soze]

I was at the meeting. I spoke with one of the guys from west 8 on integrating the canada square plans with west 8's plan. They were all for it and generally cool guys.
Some real weirdos at this meeting, I feel bad for the team of designers.

Anyone else from here go to the meeting?

[phunky]

the last two paragraphs really stand out to me. glad that someone else recognizes this.

[skouby]

Originally Posted by kyser soze

Some real weirdos at this meeting, I feel bad for the team of designers.

Weirdos? What kind of weirdos. What exactly do you mean??

[kyser soze]

Originally Posted by skouby

Weirdos? What kind of weirdos. What exactly do you mean??

Just some angry people...

[camel_trainer]

There is an article worth reading in today's Globe about the waterfront, but I can't access it online because it's only available to subscribers. Anyone know a way around that? I've already tried searching the headline in Google news, which sometimes works, but it's not there.

Anyway, the article's title is:

Sugar adding to waterfront's sour look
JOHN BARBER

It's just basically about how the Redpath (Tate & Lyle) refinery and the airport are "uneconomic" and only exist because of politics. He thinks they both should (and will) eventually go.

[phunky]

Here ya go:

Sugar adding to waterfront's sour look

JOHN BARBER


People say that nothing is happening on the waterfront -- and they're mostly right. Despite a smattering of local improvements, huge tracts remain amazingly derelict -- most prominently the parking lots and old sheds of the central waterfront east of Yonge Street.

But government isn't alone to blame. An arrangement with private enterprise has done its share in retarding progress.

An overdue renaissance to the west remains paralyzed in utero due to the all-important need to shuttle a few dozen people a day back and forth to Ottawa.

Across the bay, the regulations that Redpath Sugar lobbied for maintain the long tradition of keeping all neighbouring development at bay.

In addition to their roles in retarding a waterfront renaissance, the island airport and the sugar plant share one significant characteristic: They are uneconomic.

If the free market had its way, both facilities would have gone the same way as the flour mills, shipyards, warehouses and foundries that once crowded the same shores.

Only political friction keeps them alive.

Although it has suffered none of the bad publicity richly earned by the Toronto Port Authority and the island airport, the Redpath plant is another prominent dog in the manger -- albeit one that offers a wonderful view down Jarvis Street when there's a ship unloading, and which will be missed when it closes, as it surely will.

Its inevitable end will mark the final demise of Toronto's industrial waterfront. Once Redpath closes, there will be no more foreign cargo ships inching dramatically through the Eastern Gap on a summer's day. There will be no more Harbour.

It could happen imminently -- perhaps as soon as Fidel Castro dies.

The moment the United States lifts its trade embargo on Cuba, as the whole world hopes and expects it to do, the last fragile reason for refining sugar on the Toronto waterfront disappears. Cuban sugar imported to Toronto will go through Miami, as God and Adam Smith intended. In the best of all possible worlds, it will be refined in Cuba.

In the meantime, the Redpath regulation is frustrating neighbouring property owners and preventing them from building what the market really does want -- apartments -- the construction of which can be leveraged to yield amenities such as a continuous waterfront promenade, new parks and gathering places.

I can't tell you exactly why the last scheme to develop the scandalously vacant lot at the foot of Yonge Street fell apart, but its legacy includes regulations that are guaranteed to make a mess of whatever might happen to the latest attempt. Anxious that new neighbours would besiege it with complaints about its trucks operating at night, the company successfully argued for a bylaw that requires any new development to be shielded from its yard by a four-storey wall -- and forbids it to include any east-facing windows.

It's hard to imagine a better example of a perverse political outcome that has done so much to retard waterfront development. But there it is: the law of the land. Let us adorn the face of our fair city with huge, blank concrete walls.

Maybe if Fidel dies before council has a chance to approve such a scheme, Redpath will hedge its bets by allowing for the inevitable. There is already one plan afoot for developing the Yonge Street half of the site. Building the other half under the current constraints would be disastrous.

The big difference between Redpath and the island airport is that nobody will miss the latter when it goes. But neither escapes the deathwatch. Unless there is no limit to waterfront absurdity, there can't be any future in using that much prime land for the trivial purpose of allegedly saving a handful of people a few minutes in the air.

If there was a real demand for the service, Porter Airlines wouldn't be struggling along with half-empty planes on two domestic routes, heavily dependent on government subsidies and patronage. The island airport would be a real going concern. But it hasn't been that for ages, and it still isn't. It's as obsolete as the sugar refinery across the bay, and like it sustained by politics alone.