k10ery
Senior Member
Hope for the Sheraton walkway? From the Post:
I crossed the bridge above Queen Street, ending at three glass doors that lead to the mezzanine of the Sheraton Hotel. This span has quite an august name. “Constitution Walkway,” reads the plaque. “Dedicated by the Sheraton Centre on April 17, 1982, to commemorate Constitution Day.” These days, though, it smells of pee.
One door was ajar; I entered the hotel. A man jangling a bunch of keys challenged me: “Can I help you? Are you a guest at the hotel?” The Sheraton may have once invited its guests to use this walkway; today, a sign reads: “Emergency Exit Only. Caution: Walkway may be slippery and wet. Alternate exit via the lobby.”
Five years ago the city awarded a deal to Plant Architect Inc. to remake Nathan Phillips Square. Plant suggested demolishing the walkway to the Sheraton, “to open up Queen Street,” says Chris Pommer, an architect at Plant. The Sheraton didn’t want to pay for that, so the walkway stays. Now Plant wants to entice people up above the square.
“A big part of the vision is making more connections to the walkways,” Mr. Pommer says. “If [the walkway to the Sheraton] is gonna stay, then we should use it.”
Fundamentally, as Plant recognizes its plan to redo the square, the walkway and City Hall’s (now green) roof are not inviting places because forbidding cement walls shield them. When you’re down below, you can’t see up there very well.
Plant promises in its plan for the square that: “The balcony above … will have the potential to act as an intimate space for everyday activities: conversation, reading, or eating lunch. At the stairs, voids will be cut from the walkway to lighten entrance points and increase visual connectivity with the square.”
“On a stretch of the south walkway, on the inside, we will remove a stretch of panels along the skating rink and replace it with a glass balustrade to provide a better view,” adds Mr. Pommer, who is in the thick of the square remake job. “So you can sit on a bench and look into the square.” However, now that the city budget to “revitalize” its main square has ballooned from $16-million to $51.5-million and the project is two years behind schedule, Mr. Pommer doesn’t know when workers will get to the balustrade.
How else can we get Torontonians — more accustomed to burrowing on the underground PATH — to walk up above? Removing barriers is a start. The other day after eating lunch on the green roof, I called the City of Toronto to ask why, rather than promote the roof, the city put steel barriers across the north stairs leading up from Elizabeth Street.
“That’s a good point,” said Mike McCoy, director of operations in facilities management. “You’re right, putting the sign at the bottom of the stairs is probably a better plan.”
He meant what he said. This week the city removed the barricades and placed new signs on wooden pedestals at the roof’s front and rear access points, reading, “Come experience our green podium roof. Up the ramp and through the gate. Hours: Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Weekends and holidays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.”
My inquiries may have lit a spark in the Sheraton, too. “It got us thinking,” says Stanton Singh, the hotel’s director of marketing. “Maybe when they are finished that construction we can open it up and have a connection to the green roof.”
I crossed the bridge above Queen Street, ending at three glass doors that lead to the mezzanine of the Sheraton Hotel. This span has quite an august name. “Constitution Walkway,” reads the plaque. “Dedicated by the Sheraton Centre on April 17, 1982, to commemorate Constitution Day.” These days, though, it smells of pee.
One door was ajar; I entered the hotel. A man jangling a bunch of keys challenged me: “Can I help you? Are you a guest at the hotel?” The Sheraton may have once invited its guests to use this walkway; today, a sign reads: “Emergency Exit Only. Caution: Walkway may be slippery and wet. Alternate exit via the lobby.”
Five years ago the city awarded a deal to Plant Architect Inc. to remake Nathan Phillips Square. Plant suggested demolishing the walkway to the Sheraton, “to open up Queen Street,” says Chris Pommer, an architect at Plant. The Sheraton didn’t want to pay for that, so the walkway stays. Now Plant wants to entice people up above the square.
“A big part of the vision is making more connections to the walkways,” Mr. Pommer says. “If [the walkway to the Sheraton] is gonna stay, then we should use it.”
Fundamentally, as Plant recognizes its plan to redo the square, the walkway and City Hall’s (now green) roof are not inviting places because forbidding cement walls shield them. When you’re down below, you can’t see up there very well.
Plant promises in its plan for the square that: “The balcony above … will have the potential to act as an intimate space for everyday activities: conversation, reading, or eating lunch. At the stairs, voids will be cut from the walkway to lighten entrance points and increase visual connectivity with the square.”
“On a stretch of the south walkway, on the inside, we will remove a stretch of panels along the skating rink and replace it with a glass balustrade to provide a better view,” adds Mr. Pommer, who is in the thick of the square remake job. “So you can sit on a bench and look into the square.” However, now that the city budget to “revitalize” its main square has ballooned from $16-million to $51.5-million and the project is two years behind schedule, Mr. Pommer doesn’t know when workers will get to the balustrade.
How else can we get Torontonians — more accustomed to burrowing on the underground PATH — to walk up above? Removing barriers is a start. The other day after eating lunch on the green roof, I called the City of Toronto to ask why, rather than promote the roof, the city put steel barriers across the north stairs leading up from Elizabeth Street.
“That’s a good point,” said Mike McCoy, director of operations in facilities management. “You’re right, putting the sign at the bottom of the stairs is probably a better plan.”
He meant what he said. This week the city removed the barricades and placed new signs on wooden pedestals at the roof’s front and rear access points, reading, “Come experience our green podium roof. Up the ramp and through the gate. Hours: Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Weekends and holidays, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.”
My inquiries may have lit a spark in the Sheraton, too. “It got us thinking,” says Stanton Singh, the hotel’s director of marketing. “Maybe when they are finished that construction we can open it up and have a connection to the green roof.”
