167 College St. (3 Storey Retail)

[androiduk]

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[urbandreamer]

What the? They're knocking this building down for that? Why not put a midrise condo above the building--would sell quickly to rich grad student types.

 

[condovo]

We're losing too many mid-century buildings.

 

[SP!RE]

Whatever is planned to go there looks like an awkwardly massed, bland and soulless project. Plus. it seems like such a strange place to just build a 3-floor retail building of that size. I wish UofT would buy the property or something. Or better yet, keep the services for the poor and homeless intact at this intersection, instead of pushing them out yet again.

I think the building that's there now has great character, and it is indeed a cool example of mid-century architecture. I always liked it. What a shame it might disappear sometime soon

 

[gristle]

The proposed building looks like a car dealership out on a suburban arterial road.

 

[adHominem]

Well, that sucks.

 

[cfloryan]

I really like the old building there. What a shame to lose it

 

[junctionist]

Talk to the councillor. Maybe with some communication, they can enhance their plans.

 

[adma]

While I'm ususally the first person to defend such architecture in principle, I can't get too worked up about this as a loss--it's got a bit too much of that ultra-establishment conservative-Modern-for-Georgian-taste-c1950 for comfort (cf. Kerr Hall, or the M+H/P+S/S+M City Hall proposal), to the point where the Salvation Army suits it all too well presently. And the way that it addresses (not) the corner is particularly bleak--for a building like this to become a preservation cause celebre strikes me as rather quixotic except by extreme-case Dominion Modern standards. Though as is so often the case, its main present-day virtue is in being "intact"--but otherwise, count me in with those who'd find this less a matter of what's being lost, than of what's being proposed as a replacement.

 

[College Park]

While retail might seem a strange fit for this location, there is spotty coverage in the commercial corridor between Spadina and Bay, and I would like to see College on the south side given the opportunity to fill in. For those working at UofT, MaRS, Hydro, and hospitals, additional services and restaurants in this area would reduce the work-environment feel of the area, and provide some mixed-use balance.

As for the building and its heritage value - like the Dentistry faculty on Edward, it is functionally bland and doesn't address the street at all.

 

[adma]

Though Dentistry is at least in an innocuous midblock location. (And of course, someone architectural-historically illiterate like urbandreamer might label Dentistry as its era's version of Jack Diamond's Central Y...)

 

[urbandreamer]

No. They're in different leagues. Diamond is in the amateur league of conservative modernism.

 

[College Park]

There are those who think buildings like Dentistry and the Sally Anne are worthy examples of their era, but even buildings designed by notables can be unsuccessful experiments. Places that present dusty stale walls to otherwise busy avenues (and this building is stale) are urban blights. I have a similar issue with the family services building on Church south of Carlton. It fills out important roles housing worthwhile organizations, but the bunker feel of the place sucks the oxygen out of the air.

 

[Hipster Duck]

The Sally Ann that is being replaced is not exactly a looker, but gristle is right: this building looks like some suburban car dealership and is of a scale that is completely unbefitting of a major downtown street.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Toronto isn't getting any better architecturally, it's just trying on new styles in a haphazard, uncoordinated manner like a six year old girl rummaging through her mother's closet. Yes, some good stuff is being built and some buildings actually seem to form part of a coherent, contextually-relevant style (the so-called 'Toronto style') that might give some stamp of identity to the city in a few decades time. On the other hand, we just replace crap with crap or build ad hoc additions that are completely at odds with their surroundings.

 

[adma]

There are those who think buildings like Dentistry and the Sally Anne are worthy examples of their era, but even buildings designed by notables can be unsuccessful experiments.

Except that we're not talking about "notables" here, unless you want to elevate the likes of Allward & Gouinlock to a Parkin or Dickinson (or Jack Diamond, even) level...