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East Bayfront: Bayside (Waterfront Toronto/Hines/Tridel, Pelli Clark Pelli et al)

You might be able to request WT for some info re: the design aspects sometime after they've announced the winning bid - no guarantees what their response might be though, though they are pretty good with releasing info that they can release from my experience.

Mike:

Of course you are bound by confidentiality clauses, etc. - but what's your personal feel towards the proposals that did make the cut? Are they superlative in quality?

AoD
 
Mike in TO said:
^ Given that other parcels haven't had to losing bids released I'd be surprised if they were (I don't think WaterFront Toronto would want to court controversy and debate).

Keep in mind that the bids are very detailed with financial components to them as well. If they were released to the public they'd get the typical scrutiny such as on UT where most people base their opions on a 30 second glance at a rendering vs the detailed bid proposals, negotiations etc that occur over a several month period. Given that there are a lot of financial implications and detailed private commercial components to the bids nothing in detail would be permitted to be released... even the winning proposals may not have the commerical and financial info made public.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mike. That's what I thought. The UT debate would be intense and interesting. Not releasing them is understandable from WT's perspective and any other agency that undertakes similar procedures (eg. ORC).
 
Anybody have insight on who has been or who might be awarded this parcel? It's strange because WT hasn't been very public with this parcel of land. Last I recall, developers presented their plans for Bayside, but that was back in the winter months. Any news on this?
 
dcc008: the process is underway, and it is not conducted in public. This kind of thing never is.

It's a short thread: read it all, and you'll find your question is pretty much unnecessary. If that's asking too much of you, read Mike in TO's post #15 in this thread.

42
 
AoD - Sorry, I can't comment any further or provide anything specific other than to say it's a long detailed process and the city is negotiating with the lead proponents.
 
Does anyone know what is going on with the lot next the the park (I posted a blog asking this question, here)? I feel that we should have already had some information on this lot, as it is such a prime piece of land for redevelopment.

Does the RFP go through a public process at all, or will there just be a developer named?
 
Last edited:
Here is my follow up post to post #211... Found on the blog, HERE.

At the end of May we posted a story on the Waterfront based East Bayside plot, on the South side of Queens Quay just to the East of Sherbourne Park.

We posed the question - What's going on?

Well, we here at BuzzBuzzHome decided to do a little investigating and what we found was worrying to say the least.

We called the York Quay Neighbourhood Association. We called Councillor Pam McConnell's office. We called the Waterfront Secretariat. We called the Waterfront BIA. All of these were kind enough to answer our questions and return our phone calls.

Each one however, directed us towards one organisation, whom they said would be able to provide us with all the information we were looking for - Waterfront Toronto.

Well, after calling several people there and leaving several voicemails, we never heard back. Disappointing really, especially since the information that we gathered from our other research resulted in alarmingly conflicting results.

Here's what we DO know: An RFP was put out in December of last year for the site which is to be a residential and commercial property.

That's it. That's the one bit of concrete information that we have.

We got conflicting stories from the various people we managed to talk to. One said there was a shortlist of 4 developers being negotiated with at the moment, with the successful candidate being announced over the 'next few weeks'.

This flies in the face of the TWO separate people who told us that in fact, Waterfront Toronto had decided on ONE bid to submit to the City of Toronto for final signing off and that that had already been submitted.

We were also told that a report to the city on the evaluation of the bids will be taken to council in their last meeting of the year, in August. If there's no decision on it then, it will 'have to wait until the new year'.

When asked on the issue of public process and why the public have not been involved in the decision making thus far, we were assured that it was completely typical that everything was 'confidential' at this stage, seeing as it was a 'competition process' and that when the winning proponent is announced, Waterfront Toronto will decide how much information they want to release to the public.

We have several issues with this:

1. If in fact there has been only ONE proponent's bid sent to City Hall, then where's the competition in that?! They aren't up against anyone!

2. Why don't the public get to have a say? Or at least a LOOK at what the plans are. If there are 4 developer's in the running then why not let the people know what the proposals are and let them have their say?

3. The general lack of transparency. It's been over 5 months since the RFP's were put out and not a single word has been heard since.

So, Waterfront Toronto, here's your chance to clear things up and tell the people of Toronto what is going on. Why so secretive about this site?
 
As the public advocate and steward of waterfront revitalization, Waterfront Toronto's core values include accountability, transparency and public engagement.

Since 2001, Waterfront Toronto has set a new standard for leading open, inclusive and transparent planning processes. We have won awards for our public consultation process, and have established Toronto’s first design review panel to oversee through a public process, all new revitalization work on Toronto’s waterfront.

Waterfront Toronto has also concluded successful private sector development projects, such as the development agreements secured with Urban Capital for River City in the West Don Lands and Great Gulf Group of Companies for Parkside in East Bayfront. These differ from our public realm competitions in that they involve real estate transactions with commercially-sensitive information and proposals from several proponents and require, therefore, appropriate levels of confidentiality. They also involve approval for the transaction by the land owner – usually the Province of Ontario or Toronto City Council.

Nonetheless, once approval has been obtained for the development agreement, the project is subject to our normal, public consultation process on all aspects of the design and implementation of the project. This also includes submitting the design to our Design Review Panel for vetting.

In terms of the Bayside development site, Waterfront Toronto undertook a thorough two-stage RFQ/RFP process to secure an innovative and experienced private sector partner to design, build, manage and finance the development of the site according to the vision embodied in the East Bayfront precinct plan – a plan developed as part of a 2 year public consultation process setting the comprehensive vision for the design and development of this new waterfront community. Currently we are finalizing our recommendation for a private sector development partner for Bayside.

Choosing a development partner to bring the precinct plan to life was based on a rigorous and conscientious process that considered numerous city-building and financial criteria. The competitive process was guided by a Steering Committee representing subject matter experts in design, sustainability and real estate. The process was overseen by a fairness advisor, the Honourable Justice Coulter A. Osbourne.

Public consultation was also incorporated into the process. The Bayside submissions were presented by a third party facilitator in a confidential session to a group representing a range of interested and affected community groups and stakeholders. Feedback from that stakeholder session was then incorporated into the decision-making process.

While the specific terms and conditions of this land sale transaction have required confidentiality, Waterfront Toronto’s process for how the selection will be made has been completely transparent. In fact, our website clearly outlines the process, features a copy of the RFQ and notes that we are currently in negotiations with one development partner.

In keeping with our delivery of the Parkside and River City developments, Waterfront Toronto will make our recommended Bayside partner public when we bring a development agreement to the City for approval this summer. Once the land sale is approved, our development partner will be required to make formal presentations to the Waterfront Design Review Panel at critical points during the design process. The team will also participate in Waterfront Toronto’s extensive public consultation process at both stakeholder and general public meetings.

As our stakeholders will attest, Waterfront Toronto works diligently to communicate with members of the public.

It is an anomaly that voicemail messages were not returned promptly – and we would like to apologize for that oversight. As an organization we pride ourselves on our timely response to inquiries from the public. We are looking into what happen in this particular case and will make every effort to ensure that it does not happen again.
 
WaterfrontTO: thank you for the comprehensive response, and welcome to UrbanToronto. We look forward to more information about the Bayside parcel as it becomes available!

42
 
Here's our response to post #23 and #24 as found on our blog here - http://blog.buzzbuzzhome.com/2010/07/bayside-development-waterfront-toronto.html


We here at BuzzBuzzHome Corp. have been paying attention to the East Bayside site on the Waterfront for quite some time now.

We've posted stories on it over the past couple of months and our interest is based around the fact that an RFQ went out in November of last year and nothing has been heard on it since.

We contacted Waterfront Toronto, who are in charge of the site, and you can read their response here.

We appreciate that they responded to us and forgive them for being late in answering our phone calls (hey, these things happen!) but we are still miffed that they didn't really address our questions.

In their response, Waterfront Toronto outlined the fact that details of the Proponents submissions needed to be kept confidential because there was sensitive financial information involved. This is completely understandable, but we aren't looking to get the financial information - all we want is for the citizens of Toronto to see the design proposals that were submitted.

Waterfront Toronto says its core values include accountability, transparency and public engagement. Where's the public engagement here? The Bayside submissions were presented to a third party facilitator in a confidential session to a group representing a range of interested and affected community groups and stakeholders. Fair enough.

But why can't the people who are affected most by any new development - the citizens of Toronto, see them too? Why can't the people of Toronto see the options for this parcel of land owned by the city?

Surely the fiasco that is the Arena Complex would indicate that such public bodies as Waterfront Toronto would want to be as transparent as possible. Plans were shown to a Citizen's Advisory panel fairly late in that process, and look what happened there! Are they running the risk of this happening again?!

As a public agency who's mandate is to act in the public interest, how can Waterfront Toronto say that this is in the public interest? Surely SHOWING the four shortlisted design plans and involving the public in what would be best for the site is the way to go?! No?

Are we missing something here?!

In the RFQ (which you can read yourself here) section 10.7 states:

'the design component of the Proponent's response to the RFP, or a position thereof, may be presented in a public exhibition'.

What happened to this?

Section 12.3:

'Waterfront Toronto is committed to ensuring that this selection process is open, fair and equitable to all Proponents'.

Again, surely showing the design proposals is the fairest way to treat the Proponents?!

BuzzBuzzHome also understands that there was an opportunity to take the proposal to an executive committee earlier this month, and it wasn't. Why is it now deferred? The next committee is in August, and if nothing is decided on then, it's going to be 2011 before anything is done.

All we want is to see the design schemes put forth by the four chosen Proponents. Why can't we see them?
 
DSC:

Thanks - good eye! The impact of a 30% increase probably isn't too great depending on how it is spread out on the site.

AoD
 
The reports are out:

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2010/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-33052.pdf

Proponent: Hines Canada Management Company ULC

The Hines proposal for Bayside anticipates approximately 185,000 m2 (2.0 million sq.ft.) of development, including:
41,200 m2 of office space
18,600 m2 of ground floor animation including 5,000 m2 of cultural/civic use
76,200 m2 of market housing
8,900 m2 of low end of market & market family housing
4,200 m2 of live/work space
35,300 m2 of affordable rental
Click to expand...

Site plan in last page of the PDF linked above.

AoD
 
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