From the Globe Real Estate section:
REDEVELOPMENT
A giant waterfront game of checkers
"When it's all done in a few decades, it will be a 'signature park'
for the city." -- Christopher Glaisek of WaterfronToronto
DAVE LEBLANC
From Friday's Globe and Mail
July 25, 2008 at 12:00 AM EDT
If you imagine a checkerboard of green and grey, it's really just about colouring over those icky grey squares so that they're all gorgeous green.
Except they're not squares, they're former industrial sites that will require massive cleanup operations. And the squares that are already green are populated by people engaged in diverse waterfront activities — sailing, canoeing, dragon-boat racing, beach volleyball, bird-watching, rollerblading, bicycling and tennis.
All of which means Lake Ontario Park won't be created overnight, but, when it's all done in a few decades, it will be a "signature park" for the city, says Christopher Glaisek, WaterfronToronto's vice-president of planning and design.
He's quick to point out, however, that in unifying all of those disconnected patches of green — creating almost 1,000 acres stretching from Cherry Beach to the R.C. Harris Filtration Plant at Victoria Park Avenue — the most important thing will be to leave what's already established, such as "phenomenal asset" Tommy Thompson Park, well enough alone.
"That idea of 'big nature, big wild' is exactly what we're trying to bring across the whole park," he says.
At an open house on July 10 at Polson Pier, WaterfronToronto unveiled the current plan as prepared by New York-based landscape firm Field Operations. After the public's concerns and suggestions are considered, a final master plan will be drawn up for what will be a long, thin belt of wilderness — christened "the bar" — starting just east of Cherry Beach, and extending from Unwin Avenue to the water's edge. This will link up with the wider Base Lands (gateway to the multipronged Leslie Street Spit), which, again, will connect to Ashbridges Bay and the eastern Beaches.
"Connectivity" is a word used often when describing the massive project, and Field Operations has decided the best way to stitch together our patchy waterfront is to use transects. Transects are linear paths field scientists use when studying ecological habitats. By observing the various species encountered along a transect (and determining their numbers and how far apart they are), scientists can do various calculations once back at the lab.
Similarly, by creating transects along Lake Ontario Park, "people can go from one end to the other and experience all the different ecologies and all the different activities," explains Mr. Glaisek, a Yale-educated architect and urban planner who, before coming here, worked on the World Trade Center site in Manhattan.
Three days after the open house, Field Operations senior associate Richard Kennedy stood on Cherry Beach, dwarfed by the big cottonwood trees. "There's no place like this in any city waterfront," he told a small group preparing to be led along "the bar."
Speaking in front of the first of five banners that the walkers would encounter, the native New Yorker promised that Lake Ontario Park will be car-free, will retain most of its tree canopy (and when trees are removed, others will be planted elsewhere), will accommodate existing uses as well as add new ones, and, finally, will be "remarkable."
Also remarkable is that a firm as celebrated as Field Operations — featured in the Museum of Modern Art's 2005 exhibit on the transformation of Staten Island's Fresh Kills landfill site — was chosen to wield the green magic marker that will rewrite our waterfront.
I'd always hoped a saviour would ride in from out of town armed with that most valuable asset, objectivity, but I was afraid to dream that big. Now, combined with WaterfronToronto's other projects, — including the West Don Lands, East Bayfront and the unrelated Central Waterfront project being carried out by Rotterdam-based West 8 in collaboration with local good guys du Toit Allsopp Hillier — dreams are becoming realities.
As we walked the Martin Goodman Trail, Mr. Kennedy spoke of the exhaustive consultation process required thus far. In addition to public open houses, there have been many monthly "stakeholder meetings," involving groups such as Stakeholders are, simply, representatives from the various groups that already use the park, such as Friends of the Spit, Portlands Action Committee, West Don Lands Committee and the Outer Harbour Sailing Federation.
A "spectacular moment" could be created at the third banner (approximately even with Carlaw Avenue if it dipped down this low) if a new beach were established by removing all the scrub and ground cover, Mr. Kennedy says. Here, kayaks and dragon boats gliding mere meters away would become instant spectator fodder.After a 10-minute jaunt through the "mosquitoriffic" Base Lands, we arrived at the fifth and final banner overlooking Ashbridges Bay. Planned for this location is a 600-metre bridge that would shake hands with the eastern beaches. Rather than "create a continuous barrier" to watercraft users, Mr. Kennedy says the structure would sit on stepped islands, which, in addition to allowing aquatic traffic through, would allow bridge walkers to descend and linger on "spectator terraces."
This is the kind of civic-pride-building project we'll all be watching closely. And, with a game of checkers this promising, there'll be no such thing, hopefully, as losers.
For updates on Lake Ontario Park, go to
www.waterfrontoronto.ca.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080724.re-leblanc0725/REStory/RealEstate/home
AoD
