Toronto Forma | 308m | 84s | Great Gulf | Gehry Partners

Is there a reason why we (the city) keeps allowing for blank slate conversions of office space to pure residential, and no other usage form?

I mean I understand that there's a portion that's designated for affordable housing in most cases, but developers really should and need to incorporate other usages into their builds. The fact that the city didnt put any effort in alternative usage spaces into residential builds in the past, is a big reason why the entertainment district is dead after ~8-9pm everyday at present.

To an extent, they are repeating the same mistake all over again but in a different way.
 
…if the office market does ever pick up again, I gotta a feeling that there’s going to be an awful lot of developers eating crow.
 
Amare said:
Is there a reason why we (the city) keeps allowing for blank slate conversions of office space to pure residential, and no other usage form?

I mean I understand that there's a portion that's designated for affordable housing in most cases, but developers really should and need to incorporate other usages into their builds. The fact that the city didnt put any effort in alternative usage spaces into residential builds in the past, is a big reason why the entertainment district is dead after ~8-9pm everyday at present.

To an extent, they are repeating the same mistake all over again but in a different way.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this particular development is suitable for vertical retail, but I really wish we'd embrace it more in general. I imagine converting office space to retail is easier than converting to residential
 
I'm in Tokyo now and vertical retail is everywhere - to a level unfathomable in North America.

But unfortunately I don't see it working here - online shopping is so pervasive in North America, while of course it exists here in Asia as well so many people do shopping at stores in person.

Not sure what the answer is here.

But in terms of lamenting the loss of office space I wouldn't worry, if the market turns there are many sites ripe for development. Retail on the other hand is much more challenging.

One thing I do wish we'd focus on more is "experience" retail - spaces like Team Labs (which we have elements of in Toronto to a smaller degree) I feel these would actually do well vs say stores.
 
Today.

IMG_2661.jpeg

IMG_2665.jpeg

IMG_2664.jpeg
 
Last edited:
taal said:
I'm in Tokyo now and vertical retail is everywhere - to a level unfathomable in North America.

But unfortunately I don't see it working here - online shopping is so pervasive in North America, while of course it exists here in Asia as well so many people do shopping at stores in person.

Not sure what the answer is here.

But in terms of lamenting the loss of office space I wouldn't worry, if the market turns there are many sites ripe for development. Retail on the other hand is much more challenging.

One thing I do wish we'd focus on more is "experience" retail - spaces like Team Labs (which we have elements of in Toronto to a smaller degree) I feel these would actually do well vs say stores.
Click to expand...
I disagree with the notion that verricle retail wouldn't work here because of online shopping, maybe not to the same extent but I do think it's valuable to explore. But I do fully agree that more "experience" type retail would be good, even cinemas, gyms, food courts, arcades, karaoke, bowling, bars and so many other types work here! Maybe not as fully talk as an office space would have been, but certainly we can go up from just 1 floor of retail to 2-4.
 
This isn't a known shopping district, so retail probably won't be a huge attraction to this area.
Mirvish should have built a small venue theatre space in one of these buildings to ultimately replace the CAA Theatre at Yonge & Bloor (which is slated to close for a condo development). It makes perfect sense being in the Entertainment District and the obvious proximity to other Mivish owned theatres. They should have made that part of the deal when they sold these properties.
 
UtakataNoAnnex said:
^I don’t want to have to climb forty stories to browse dakimakura’s of my favourite anime chara…

…wait, that’s too much information there! >.<
Click to expand...
Love this as this literally describes what my wife and I have been doing 🤪

longfortheoldview said:
This isn't a known shopping district, so retail probably won't be a huge attraction to this area.
Mirvish should have built a small venue theatre space in one of these buildings to ultimately replace the CAA Theatre at Yonge & Bloor (which is slated to close for a condo development). It makes perfect sense being in the Entertainment District and the obvious proximity to other Mivish owned theatres. They should have made that part of the deal when they sold these properties.
Click to expand...

I’d love to believe that but I just don’t think there’s the demand for it at larger scales like that here. Is there any timeline on the CAA theatre closing I didn’t think the development was set in stone ? Agreed though it would have been a good idea to create that space here.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top