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MaRS Discovery District Phase II (661 University Ave / 101 College St) | Complete | 23 st | 113 m | Discovery District

27836 Views 202 Replies 58 Participants Last post by  Elkhanan1
According to todays Globe (page A11) "next week directors of the non-profit MaRS discovery district are scheduled to announce a private-sector investment of more than $300 million to complete the second phase..."

"The new building will more than double the laboratory and office space available in the complex, making it bigger than any single office tower in the financial district...." It will grow to 1.6 million square feet by 2010. And the best part, "the potential market for research-oriented office in that district, five minutes from the hospitals in one direction, five minutes from the university in the other, is as much as 10 million square feet according to city economic-development officer Kyle Benham.
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Excellent news for the health of the city! The stronger we get in Research and Development, the better.
Potential for 10 mil square feet? Thats sounds a tad optomistic...thats like 3.5 FCP s!!! Thats a ton of space...
Phase two will be significantly taller than phase one.
It seems Toronto's future lies in research and development. Hopefully, we become a world leader - if not the.
It seems Toronto's future lies in research and development. Hopefully, we become a world leader - if not the.
There is NO better thing to become a leader in. Beats call centres any day.
There is NO better thing to become a leader in. Beats call centres any day.
So 10 million sqf of research space downtown? That's a shitload of office towers. Seems our future is bright!
So 10 million sqf of research space downtown? That's a shitload of office towers. Seems our future is bright!
I think what they mean is if you add in all the space from the hospital research wings, and the extra hospital buildings, and all of the uoft buildings, the potential is to expand MaRS influence to 10 million.

Either way, I hope this gets done ASAP. Canada just ranked really horribly on a bunch of rankings in R&D related matters, I hope we can start reversing that trend.
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I think what they mean is if you add in all the space from the hospital research wings, and the extra hospital buildings, and all of the uoft buildings, the potential is to expand MaRS influence to 10 million.

Either way, I hope this gets done ASAP. Canada just ranked really horribly on a bunch of rankings in R&D related matters, I hope we can start reversing that trend.
I'm not up to date on the subject, but I was under the impression that Toronto was doing extremely well in that area... has something changed?
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I'm not up to date on the subject, but I was under the impression that Toronto was doing extremely well in that area... has something changed?
Yea, I was under that impression too... We should be thankful for having such a strong sciences related university next door to all of this - R&D at UofT is a major player. I think what Epi meant was that R&D doesn't get much government support? (Though I could swear I read that Schwarzenegger recently signed a contract at MaRS with McGuinty - something research related).
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Mars 2 is 23 storeys, 113m tall


So 10 million sqf of research space downtown? That's a shitload of office towers. Seems our future is bright
some of those planned, u/c & built off the top of my head

-St Mikes is building a 9 storey research building
-Womens college will be redeveloped with two new highrises,
-Mount Sinai is expanding their new 4 storey research building to 12 storeys
-Sick Kids has a building planned for one of the parking lots by the Nightmare on Elm.
- Leslie L Dan Pharmacy Building
- CCBR building
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Mars 2 is 23 storeys, 113m tall




some of those planned, u/c & built off the top of my head

-St Mikes is building a 9 storey research building
-Womens college will be redeveloped with two new highrises,
-Mount Sinai is expanding their new 4 storey research building to 12 storeys
-Sick Kids has a building planned for one of the parking lots by the Nightmare on Elm.
- Leslie L Dan Pharmacy Building
- CCBR building
So I heard about most of these but what are:
Women's College? Where is that first of all:S
Sick Kids has had that planned for over a year hasn't it? Still no news (that I know of).
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(Though I could swear I read that Schwarzenegger recently signed a contract at MaRS with McGuinty - something research related).
For stem cell research, I work at a stel cell research lab. California and Ontario will work together in funding new stem cell research. I work at McMaster which is building Innovation Park which is pretty much a carbon copy of MaRS.

Government support for R&D from the province is good but the problem is with the Conservatives at Ottawa. Their extremely picky at what can and can't be funded for R&D such as stem cell research.
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I'm not up to date on the subject, but I was under the impression that Toronto was doing extremely well in that area... has something changed?
Hmm was thinking of this: http://www.thestar.com/article/224616

But then of course those reports are always somewhat misleading. I remember reading in the G&B version of that, something that also critized our R&D, but maybe I'm wrong.

Either way, Toronto needs all the R&D jobs it can get, the more the better!
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Thanks for this!

Good to know that R&D jobs will be aplenty around here. I thought of going into sciences, biological and chemical - but then I backed out. Too bad.
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Great news. I haven't been in the area for awhile (hope to change that soon). Is phase two the building at University and Queen's Park, or is this something different? I thought the latter was already progressing.

As for R&D, I think the city does well. As a country, many businesses, whether Canadian owned or otherwise, relied heavily on the weak dollar, and haven’t invested heavily in R&D for some time (COUGHS … American Auto Industry).
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Great news. I haven't been in the area for awhile (hope to change that soon). Is phase two the building at University and Queen's Park, or is this something different? I thought the latter was already progressing.

As for R&D, I think the city does well. As a country, many businesses, whether Canadian owned or otherwise, relied heavily on the weak dollar, and haven’t invested heavily in R&D for some time (COUGHS … American Auto Industry).
Yes, phase two is at the corner of College and University. I hope they chose a more daring design now - to cement that intersection a bit further.
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I'm so friggin glad I took biotech science for my post secondary education lol. Finding jobs in research has been pretty easy for me. I've applied to MaRS and they've offered me a job but I had to reject the offer, took McMaster instead (closer to home). But as I gain more experience I intend to apply to MaRS again.
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