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City-TV & OMNI-TV's H.Q. (formerly Torch, Quadrangle)

The info about OMNI studios being the priority now, came from a second hand source. Just now, I confirmed it with somebody else... so the wait is official for the Torch work.

The race is on to complete OMNI's studios while the exterior will continually be worked on, but at a slower pace.

Keep in mind though that all the infrastructure for the operation of a tv station was already installed for Citytv and is fully functional. The nature of OMNI's studio work is more about building the sets, testing them and training staff to use the new spaces, setting up offices and desks, interior design, and so forth.

Also, keep in mind, only one floor is being worked on for OMNI while Citytv had several. Hence: work should be substantially quicker than City's.

I don't know of a schedule for OMNI's move but I'd expect it to happen this fall with the exterior being completed by the end of the year.

As for patience: I'm very excited as everyone else to see the work done on the torch base and tower... but I understand the priorities and a few more months isn't much to wait to see everything complete.
 
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MetroMan said:
The info about OMNI studios being the priority now, came from a second hand source. Just now, I confirmed it with somebody else... so the wait is official for the Torch work.

The race is on to complete OMNI's studios while the exterior will continually be worked on, but at a slower pace.

Keep in mind though that all the infrastructure for the operation of a tv station was already installed for Citytv and is fully functional. The nature of OMNI's studio work is more about building the sets, testing them and training staff to use the new spaces, setting up offices and desks, interior design, and so forth.

Also, keep in mind, only one floor is being worked on for OMNI while Citytv had several. Hence: work should be substantially quicker than City's.

I don't know of a schedule for OMNI's move but I'd expect it to happen this fall with the exterior being completed by the end of the year.

As for patience: I'm very excited as everyone else to see the work done on the torch base and tower... but I understand the priorities and a few more months isn't much to wait to see everything complete.
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When BT moved from 299 Queen St to Dundas Square a few weeks ago they had the VP of Rogers Media on the show stating that OMNI was schedule to move in 30 days after Citytv officially moved in. This would explain why their moving faster to complete the OMNI section of the building than the exterior.
 
^ There you go. Thanks for that info.

So in less than a month from now, OMNI will be moved in and work on the exterior will pick up.
 
I wonder if Rogers will be interested in buying up space in the square for the channels remaining at their Lakeshore & Bathurst studios.

There's room in Toronto Life Square for this or even in the upper floors of the HNR tower.
 
That building between Citytv and the Senator seem like a prime spot to add a couple channels. It seems to not be in use. I also would like to see a new Citytv mural go up on one of the walls on Victoria st where that parking lot is.
 
MetroMan said:
I wonder if Rogers will be interested in buying up space in the square for the channels remaining at their Lakeshore & Bathurst studios.

There's room in Toronto Life Square for this or even in the upper floors of the HNR tower.
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The space can only be leased from Toronto Life Square, and Rogers probably doesn't want to rent the space and spend money on installing mile and miles of TV cable just for one station.


Then again the Toronto Life Square is up for sale. Maybe Rogers is interested in buying it up and then use the top two floors for additional TV/Office space, and the roof is good enough for to put TV satellite dishes up.:rolleyes:
 
^ Well, if Rogers were to build studios for their other stations in Toronto Life Sq. they would sign a long term lease.

Although it sounds enticing, I don't think I'd want Rogers to buy TLS. They would dominate the square too much. I want to see a diversity of owners and uses for the buildings surrounding the square.
 
MetroMan said:
^ Well, if Rogers were to build studios for their other stations in Toronto Life Sq. they would sign a long term lease.

Although it sounds enticing, I don't think I'd want Rogers to buy TLS. They would dominate the square too much. I want to see a diversity of owners and uses for the buildings surrounding the square.
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They can, keep existing business in there and reserve a floor or two for Rogers only. The building it self is pretty much a deal. Penex Metropolis owes $24 million on the place(strangely to its parent company and some tenants in the building), $1million dollars cheaper than the Rogers Center.:rolleyes:
 
CodeMonkey said:
They can, keep existing business in there and reserve a floor or two for Rogers only. The building it self is pretty much a deal. Penex Metropolis owes $24 million on the place(strangely to its parent company and some tenants in the building), $1million dollars cheaper than the Rogers Center.:rolleyes:
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Interested to know where you got those debt figures? I had lunch there recently with someone from a company that was in the process of going through some due dilligence prior to a possible bid for the space and the debt figures they quoted me were substantially higher than that (really substantially higher)
 
MetroMan said:
Citytv had another year to move out of 299 Queen West. The building could have started renovation on the exterior first, then moved on to the studios (construction and move in of which were completed in impressive time). Rogers chose to focus on completing the studios so that the move could happen much earlier.

The exterior of the building is important, but Citytv and OMNI operations are much more.

There are priorities and the exterior falls below those above. It's being worked on and will be finished. Be patient.
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I realize there are priorities, but it shouldn't take that long to get your new headquarters completed, especially when the exterior changes are far less extensive than first expected.
 
There's a budget. It allows for so many people working on this project. Getting the station up and running in a year by turning the Olympic Spirit Centre into something completely unrecognizable inside -- a brand new, state of the art television station -- is far from taking too long.

In an ideal world, they'd have a construction workforce exclusively for the outside while they worked on the interior.

Or to fulfill your wishes, they could have completed the inside, waited, worked on the outside and launched the building 100% complete in a few months from now. Rogers was contemplating that but they decided to go with kicking off the Fall season in the new HQ.
 
MetroMan said:
I wonder if Rogers will be interested in buying up space in the square for the channels remaining at their Lakeshore & Bathurst studios There's room in Toronto Life Square for this or even in the upper floors of the HNR tower.
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What other channels? I don't think there's anything else in there save US feeds of MSNBC, G4TechTV and Biography being piped in.
 
MetroMan said:
There's a budget. It allows for so many people working on this project. Getting the station up and running in a year by turning the Olympic Spirit Centre into something completely unrecognizable inside -- a brand new, state of the art television station -- is far from taking too long.

In an ideal world, they'd have a construction workforce exclusively for the outside while they worked on the interior.

Or to fulfill your wishes, they could have completed the inside, waited, worked on the outside and launched the building 100% complete in a few months from now. Rogers was contemplating that but they decided to go with kicking off the Fall season in the new HQ.
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Well, it isn't really about my wishes. If the have to launch now that's fine. Their headquarters just looks very half-hazard. I simply find it hard to believe that they couldn't get their flagship TV station headquarters done in time for launch (and it has already been delayed).
 
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