Toronto Yonge Street Marine Terminal | ?m | ?s | TPA

ProjectEnd said:
You'd have to build something 10x the size of Vancouver to get to Ford's liquid dreams...
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That's very fair, and it wouldn't integrate with the existing shoreline very well over there.

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I still think that the best infill option that keeps the convention centre close to the core would be to infill this area. You could easily fit 2M sqft on a property this size across two levels, while respecting the shoreline and maintaining vehicular access off of Spadina.

Now that I think about it, this would be the perfect location in tandem with Ford attempting to take over and expand the airport....I fear I have cracked the coke
 
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Red October said:
^ Just at the expense of the best section of our central waterfront for locals in exchange for a monstrosity high-traffic convention centre for Doug and his cronies.
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I'm not saying it's wanted or ideal, but if the Duke of Toronto wants it then there are less terrible places for it to go
 
There's a piece of this that no one is discussing as well, which is the business case feasibility study.

Why would a cruise company operate out of Toronto? Despite our waterfront, we're horrifically positioned to operate a cruise industry. Getting to any traditional cruise destination, including international waters, is a minimum 10-day journey just to reach Nova Scotia. Most cruises are 10-14 days, so that means you'd only get about halfway up the St Lawrence before having to turn the boat around and come home. It would be like trying to run a cruise port out of Memphis, Tennessee.

Relatedly, the cruise industry survives on tax-haven-registered entities in places like the Bahamas and Panama, allowing it to skirt labour laws and reduce its tax burden. If the cruise happens entirely within Canadian and American waters, then their entire profit margin goes bye-bye, as the vessels must be registered with Canada or the US, and taxes must be paid to the Canadian and US governments and all subservient levels of government therein.

Pun entirely intended, this RFP is dead in the water.

I'm curious who would even respond to it. I'm also curious about the broader politics within TPA and whether this is some larger machination by them to stop a WT proposal, because this clearly isn't a good-faith RFP.
 
Vanalla said:
There's a piece of this that no one is discussing as well, which is the business case feasibility study.

Why would a cruise company operate out of Toronto? Despite our waterfront, we're horrifically positioned to operate a cruise industry. Getting to any traditional cruise destination, including international waters, is a minimum 10-day journey just to reach Nova Scotia. Most cruises are 10-14 days, so that means you'd only get about halfway up the St Lawrence before having to turn the boat around and come home. It would be like trying to run a cruise port out of Memphis, Tennessee
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Respectfully disagree.

That's not an endorsement of this proposal, but you're underestimating the growth of Great Lakes based cruises.

Last year Toronto saw ~48 cruise ships dock representing ~20,000 passengers

That's significant year over year growth, and expected to grow further in 2026. (likely about 23,000 passengers)

Its enough that Buffalo, of all places is building a new Cruise Ship terminal.
 
The Viking cruises are not cheap. Are the cruise lines pushing to move this dock to Yonge St? I’m sure the docking fees will increase.
Better for passengers but probably less profit from excursions. Overall better sales tool to get more cruises stopping here.

The bike path will need to detour this QQ area someday.

How much did we spend on the Rochester ferry terminal?

Will the next Niagara to Toronto via water proposal dock here?

Edit.added

“The terminal is a two-storey building which has 38,000 square feet (3,500 m2) of floor space and can deploy an adjustable passenger ramp from the second storey. The terminal facility is reported to have cost either CA$8 million or CA$10.4 million to construct.“

“The terminal was opened in 2005.[2]It was originally built to accommodate The Spirit of Ontario I, a water-jet powered big catamaran fast ferry that was to make several round trips per day between Toronto, Ontario and Rochester, New York, but the ferry service only ran for a total of six months.[3] The Rochester firm that owned and operated the ferry had a 14-year lease on the use of the terminal that would have paid the City of Toronto $250,000 per year.[4][3] The lease was terminated in December 2009 after payment of a $90,000 settlement.“

Wiki source

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The great lakes cruise industry has basically developed entirely in the last decade and done so quite quietly - many aren't aware of it.

Because it's limited to seawaymax sized ships, they tend to be smaller cruises with premium or semi-premium profiles. A different kind of cruise than you see with the mega-boats in the Caribbean.

They typically operate Toronto-Chicago or something similar - the only lock system they need to pass through is the Welland canal, then they operate through Erie, Huron, and Michigan fairly freely and quickly.

The Viking Octanis is the largest cruise ship on the great lakes - 700ft long and a capacity of only about 375 passengers.

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mburrrrr said:
“The terminal is a two-storey building which has 38,000 square feet (3,500 m2) of floor space and can deploy an adjustable passenger ramp from the second storey. The terminal facility is reported to have cost either CA$8 million or CA$10.4 million to construct.“

“The terminal was opened in 2005.[2]It was originally built to accommodate The Spirit of Ontario I, a water-jet powered big catamaran fast ferry that was to make several round trips per day between Toronto, Ontario and Rochester, New York, but the ferry service only ran for a total of six months.[3] The Rochester firm that owned and operated the ferry had a 14-year lease on the use of the terminal that would have paid the City of Toronto $250,000 per year.[4][3] The lease was terminated in December 2009 after payment of a $90,000 settlement.“
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I've always wondered what happened to that. And not that anyone would want to go there now... >.<
 
Vanalla said:
There's a piece of this that no one is discussing as well, which is the business case feasibility study.

Why would a cruise company operate out of Toronto? Despite our waterfront, we're horrifically positioned to operate a cruise industry. Getting to any traditional cruise destination, including international waters, is a minimum 10-day journey just to reach Nova Scotia. Most cruises are 10-14 days, so that means you'd only get about halfway up the St Lawrence before having to turn the boat around and come home. It would be like trying to run a cruise port out of Memphis, Tennessee.

Relatedly, the cruise industry survives on tax-haven-registered entities in places like the Bahamas and Panama, allowing it to skirt labour laws and reduce its tax burden. If the cruise happens entirely within Canadian and American waters, then their entire profit margin goes bye-bye, as the vessels must be registered with Canada or the US, and taxes must be paid to the Canadian and US governments and all subservient levels of government therein.

Pun entirely intended, this RFP is dead in the water.

I'm curious who would even respond to it. I'm also curious about the broader politics within TPA and whether this is some larger machination by them to stop a WT proposal, because this clearly isn't a good-faith RFP.
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I suppose you are unaware that Great Lakes cruising is booming.
 
With regards to the Convention Island, this would be my guess for where the infill would go. Relatively shallow and underused marina that sits between Exhibition Ground and Billy Bishop. With greening of the current yacht club pier it can potentially become a nice waterfront boardwalk connection starting from Ontario Place, Trillium Park, Convention Centre, and Billy Bishop. It would resolve some of the bottle necks to Trillium Park and allow Martin Goodman to run continuously along the lake. Wouldn't be a bad place for a cruise dock as well.
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MaxMin said:
With regards to the Convention Island, this would be my guess for where the infill would go. Relatively shallow and underused marina that sits between Exhibition Ground and Billy Bishop. With greening of the current yacht club pier it can potentially become a nice waterfront boardwalk connection starting from Ontario Place, Trillium Park, Convention Centre, and Billy Bishop. It would resolve some of the bottle necks to Trillium Park and allow Martin Goodman to run continuously along the lake. Wouldn't be a bad place for a cruise dock as well.
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Regrettably, this does make a lot of sense. Particularly with an expanded YTZ and Ontario Place.....
 
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