John Street Roundhouse: Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, Steam Whistle, The Rec Room

[Hipster Duck]

Imposing restrictions on who gets to set up shop sends a terrible signal for entrepreneurialism in this city and goes absolutely nowhere to improve the vibrancy of this neighbourhood that could surely use a dose of it. In principle, I think this kind of action leads to an even more monocultural zone than what a big box retailer would bring and, worse, it's dogmatic.

Plus, I maintain my original position that if it hasn't found a tenant for 15 years it could very well not find one for the next 15.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Imposing restrictions on who gets to set up shop sends a terrible signal for entrepreneurialism in this city and goes absolutely nowhere to improve the vibrancy of this neighbourhood that could surely use a dose of it. In principle, I think this kind of action leads to an even more monocultural zone than what a big box retailer would bring and, worse, it's dogmatic.

Plus, I maintain my original position that if it hasn't found a tenant for 15 years it could very well not find one for the next 15.

Exactly! This was the sort of bizarre thinking that mikescarborough was infamous for.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

The Roundhouse is heritage-protected, so Leon's won't be doing anything significant to it, just selling furniture out of it.

 

[adma]

In that case, Steam Whistle should stop selling beer, and start selling orange juice

 

[MisterF]

Okay so let me get this straight...

-The city approved a lease for the roundhouse.
-Retail is a permitted use.
-The company leasing the building is leasing space to Leon's (retail) and a museum.
-Leon's is restoring the building and adopting a new image distinct from their suburban stores, that in all likelyhood will be consistent with heritage guidelines.
-The roundhouse is getting a museum.

So where's the problem? And why is a brewery a more desireable use than retail?

 

[Bogtrotter]

It is hardly unreasonable that custodians of unique public heritage properties afford very careful consideration with reagrds to those who wish to occupy them. I think it's crazy to just lease to anyone without carefully considering what their intentions are, and moreover what their intentions are relative to other possibilities. What unnerves me is that they seem to be settling on the first viable option, I don't see the urgency despite it's underused history. I persoanlly don't believe it will sit underused for another 15 years, that area is changing rapidly and other opportunities will arise. I hope all public heritage properties are given the same amount of careful scrutiny. Additionally, legislation on heritage properties in this city, if anything, should be reinforced, I fully support the government's regulations that place limitations on what can be done with them and to them.

But I'm not saying Leon's and the developing consortion interested inthe property can't do a good job at using and preserving the space. Obviously the value ofthe land in such a high growth area is very appealing to them. But I rather suspect others will see this as well in a few years, I say lets wait for more proposals.

 

[maestro]

just a note

The Leons at Danforth and Dawes has no on site parking whatsoever and has been around for as long as I can remember

 

[ShonTron]

More from the Star:

No Leon's sign at roundhouse?
Jun 15, 2007 04:30 AM
Donovan Vincent
John Spears
City Hall Bureau

The old railway roundhouse is one of Mayor David Miller's favourite heritage buildings, and he says he'll be keeping close tabs on what the Leon's furniture chain does when it moves in.

"It can't be a mall kind of place. If it fits in the roundhouse and it's high-end and that's what they're committed to doing, then it may well work,'' he told reporters yesterday.

"But a bright yellow Leon's sign has no place on the roundhouse.''

Company president and CEO Terry Leon says that the roundhouse outlet will indeed be different from the warehouse style of its other stores, offering more of a showroom atmosphere to appeal to the neighbourhood's condo dwellers. Leon said he wants to see the roundhouse restored and hopes to have an outlet in the building by late summer or early fall next year.

The discount chain's plans to set up shop in the historic railway building, a heritage-protected facility on Bremner Blvd. across from the Rogers Centre, have caused controversy since the news broke this week.

Toronto's culture department supports the idea, but Adam Vaughan, the councillor representing the area at city hall, called the plans an example of "big box coming into the downtown core through the back door.''

 

[Jdot]

Lets just hope that they do something with that raised silo on the western end. It looks HORRIBLE.
...and cut the grass out front already...

 

[samsonyuen]

I'm glad everyone seems to agree that no one wants a yellow sign there.

 

[yyzer]

I agree with Hume 100%.....

How do you spell creative bankruptcy? R-O-U-N-D-H-O-U-S-E
TheStar.com - living - How do you spell creative bankruptcy? R-O-U-N-D-H-O-U-S-E

June 16, 2007
Christopher Hume
Urban Affairs Columnist

There's no longer any question: Toronto has officially gone off the rails.

Whatever doubt lingered was dispelled this week when the city announced a deal has been signed with Leon's, yes, the furniture chain, to take over the Roundhouse, a designated national historic site.

It sounds like a joke, except that it's true, and it's not funny.

We all know that Toronto is broke, but this goes beyond comprehension, and enters into the realm of civic madness.

The bureaucrats would have us believe the deal is good because Leon's and the builders who have actually leased the facility from the city – O &Y, Tenen and State Development – will clean up the structure, which the city has neglected for years.

What they don't say is that when it issued an RFP (request for proposals) fully six years ago, it stipulated that renovating the building was a condition no matter who won.

The most troubling aspect of the arrangement, more worrisome than the fate of a building, is that it signals a city devoid of imagination. We have run out of ideas. We have given up. We have no way to save ourselves but to offer the public realm, now up for sale to the highest bidder. This in the Creative City!

Never has that term rung so hollow. Never has the self-deception been so painfully evident.

This is nothing against Leon's, but a furniture store does not belong in the roundhouse. It's that simple.

How appropriate that the city should announce its Roundhouse deal the same week the Conference Board of Canada released a scathing report about Canada's lack of innovation, its complacency and its decreasing ability to compete with the rest of the world.

"You can trace our poor performance to a failure to innovate in the broadest sense," said conference board CEO, Anne Golden.

She might not have had the Roundhouse in mind when the report was prepared, but in its own small way, it sums up the mindset of a society grown rich plundering its own resources, whether natural or cultural.

What doesn't seem to have occurred to Toronto's braintrust is that the Roundhouse, and heritage in general, represent a significant civic asset. Instead, they are viewed as a liability, something to be unloaded at the first opportunity.

The fact is that a building such as the Roundhouse has enormous potential as a destination for Torontonians and tourists alike. People everywhere love trains, especially old trains. What better place to display them, to create a railway attraction?

Instead, the site is a disgrace. Though its lone occupant, Steam Whistle Brewery, maintains its portion of the property, the rest is a weed-infested wasteland. The U-shaped structure, magnificent in its own way, sits largely empty. Of its 32 bays, each marked by an impressive wooden door, the majority seem not to have been opened in decades.

The turntable that once occupied space in front of the Roundhouse is gone, the circular hole in the ground also fenced off. One lone locomotive can be seen, a hint of what might have been.

Behind the building sits old Cabin D. Clad in cedar shingles, it dates from an age when train travel was taken seriously. Although derelict, its roof falling apart, it remains beautiful. Indeed, it surpasses in architectural quality most of the towers and slabs that now surround the site.

The Roundhouse itself dates from 1929, the second such facility built on the property by the CPR. Though designed to service steam engines, it was adapted to handle diesel locomotives before it was finally shut down in 1982.

Though the city has been searching for tenants since the days of Mel Lastman, it has not done well. Not until Steam Whistle Brewery approached the city on its own initiative and signed a lease in 1999 for 11 (now 14) of the 32 bays did the Roundhouse find new life.

According to Culture Toronto executive director, Rita Davies, city council's instructions were to establish a rail museum but at no cost to the city. That pretty well sums up the situation.

According to Davies, the developers will spend $10 million to turn three bays into a museum; the rest, 15, will go to Leon's.

"Retail is a permitted use," she insists. "Our role is compliance."

Meanwhile, the Steam Whistle people are furious because the developers are paying 89 cents a square foot, while their rent is $7.50. "We're fuming," says Steam Whistle co-founder Cam Heaps. "Part of the city's job is to ensure a `culturally sensitive active reuse' for the historically designated site. We submitted a proposal for an event centre/railway museum but the city rejected our scheme."

Steam Whistle's plan, prepared with the Toronto Railway Historical Association, would have led to the renovation of 11 bays as a showcase for old locomotives and rolling stock.

"People love our brand because of the Roundhouse," says Steam Whistle's other co-founder Greg Taylor: "We wanted to develop a railway museum. The idea is that it would be a museum during the day that people could tour. At night it would be an event space. We have the funding."

Sounds much more interesting, not to mention appropriate, than a furniture store.

Nevertheless Davies insists, "We are happy with the deal."

Too bad nobody else is.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

Oh, dear. I guess Leon's hasn't bought enough ad space in the Star to pay for a favourable Hume commentary.

 

[syn]

That was a metaphor about not holding out for too much. The roundhouse hasn't attracted anyone before not just because it was in the wrong location but because nobody except a big box retailer can commit to that kind/amount of space.

Maple Leaf Gardens is another example of this. Most people are offended that it might be turned into a SuperCentre when, in reality, its only other option to date has been to sit around vacant and be of no use to anyone.

That isn't true. There have been a lot of great options for MLG - MLSE has just been too shortsighted or paranoid to allow any of them.

 

[ShonTron]

The best proposal was for the St. Mike's Majors to take MLG over, and save it for (gasp!) a hockey rink. But ML$E was probably thinking of moving the St. John's Maple Leafs here, using the taxpayer-subsidized Ricoh arena. And hockey was specifically banned from any future use. That is why Loblaws is likely the best commercial option given the poor potential thanks to MLSE.

Ryerson also had plans, but not the money.

I am not convinced that Leon's is the best commerical option for the Roundhouse.

 

[ShonTron]

Brewery owners want museum in the roundhouse, not Leon's

Jun 30, 2007 04:30 AM

Donovan Vincent
City hall bureau

First came the news that a Leon's outlet would be moving into the old roundhouse rail facility.

Then came an order that a 1948 CP Rail locomotive stored there had to hit the rails – or be turned into scrap.

Now the owners of Steam Whistle brewery have asked the city to hold the train, so to speak, on everything.

The brewery, which operates inside the roundhouse near the Rogers Centre, is bringing a proposal to Mayor David Miller next week calling for a rail museum to be established in the space set aside for the furniture store.

Here's the plan as it stands: The developers who lease the city-owned roundhouse – the ones bringing in Leon's – would pay for a rail museum to be housed in three of the roundhouse's 32 bays.

These are areas once used to service and repair locomotives while the roundhouse was a working facility, between 1931 and 1986.

The museum would sit in-between Steam Whistle and the new Leon's, filling bays 15-17.

Leon's would get all bays above 17, up to 32, while Steam Whistle would hold onto bays 1 to 14.

Steam Whistle co-owners Greg Taylor and Cam Heaps aren't happy with that plan at all. And they don't just want Leon's out as a possible neighbour.

Instead, they want the entire space not currently occupied set aside for a larger rail museum, not just a couple of bays.

Taylor said there are other partners interested in joining in their plan. "We're coming back to the city and saying, `Hold on, this doesn't make sense as a use of an important building in the city, and an area that sits in the middle of a tourism hub,'" Taylor said.

"Give us a chance to come up with something better than a furniture warehouse."

Financing isn't a problem, say the Steam Whistle owners, and restoring the space Leon's wants would only take a year or so.

"Having a furniture store there is a ludicrous idea,'' Taylor said.

The main sticking point is that the city has a lease with the developers and would likely be open to lawsuits if the agreement is broken.

The city's culture department is okay with the furniture store moving in as long as the heritage elements of the roundhouse are maintained as promised.

Steam Whistle "should negotiate (their proposal) with the developers," Rita Davies, executive director of the city's culture department, said yesterday.

Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina), the area councillor, said earlier this week that the city's legal department is looking into "what latitude the city might have" regarding its contract with the developers and whether the developers have actually signed a contract with Leon's.

"It's unclear to us now whether we have the legal ability to stop any of this. We have some moral clout we are trying to resuscitate," Vaughan said. "Many of us are appalled at the way this has turned out."

Vaughan explained that decisions by previous councils may have tied the city's hands on this one.

Steam Whistle's attempt comes as the owners of a rebuilt 1948 engine face a city-imposed deadline to remove it from the roundhouse by Tuesday.

Toronto brothers Doug and Don Lister, both train engineers, found the train in "1,000 pieces" and headed for a scrap heap in Vancouver in 1978.

Using their own money, they fixed it up. But now the brothers say they don't have the $50,000 it would cost to move the switching engine using a flatbed truck.

In 1987, they received permission from then mayor Art Eggleton to store the locomotive at the roundhouse. But that agreement said either side could get out at any time, as long as there was 180 days' notice, which the city has given.

Davies said yesterday that the engine doesn't even belong to the period of rail history represented by the roundhouse, according to historians the city has consulted with.

So if the owners don't remove the engine, she said, the city might have to look at finding an institution that can take it.