Toronto 880 Bay Street | ?m | 44s | Infrastructure ON | WZMH

I like my office towers to be substantial and not the anorexic, Hollywood thin that most people want their towers these days. Everyone wants super skinny towers to give the illusion of height. What about giving buildings ACTUAL height like over 300 meters? Then the building can be proportioned correctly like the Empire State Building.

Some of the latest condos going up look like Dr. Suess illustrations, with only one unit per floor. Not to mention that all the newer condos with tiny floor plates are also helping the builders to sell closets as apartments.

As far as commercial space goes, give me a Rockefeller Center any day.
 
I'm very concerned about the design of the 44s(?) slab tower

what ever happened to &CO's "staggered boxes" scheme? I liked that SUBSTANTIALLY more interesting looking design then WZMH's current proposal (shown in the City Planning staff report) ~

SP!RE said:
Here is what &Co visualized for the site and two adjacent sites, as found by my friend Neal on their Facebook page. Awesome ideas at work here:

Added 19 Hours Ago: &Co, on a team lead by Walker Nott Dragicevic, undertook the urban design and visualization for an Optimal Use and Massing Alternatives Study for provincial property comprising 880 Bay, 60 Grosvenor and an additional site located to the west. To explore options for possible redevelopment, our team determined how various uses might be massed on the site and what constituted optimal use in the context of the current planning policy and regulatory framework. Results included the determination of maximum achievable density, visual communication packages to illustrate massing schemes including perspectives and 3D models, and final recommendations such as marketability, pro-forma analysis.


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The exterior treatment has not been determined; WZMH have not designed the building, only a the envelope for a specific volume. Their rep did state however that the size of the floor plate has been determined by the Ontario Government. The Gov't wants as large a floor plate as possible so that as many people from various Ministry offices as possible may share a specific floor. The theory is that by keeping offices together on large floors, more employees will communicate better with each other, and pass more information efficiently.

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I'm curious, where are all the employees coming from too fill this giant building? Sure the government will grow overtime but is there a lot consolidation going on here? Are they retaining all their offices in the Whitney Block?
 
It's been said before but, the government has a ton of space in commercial buildings along Bay and Bloor streets. The midtown market is going to take a huge hit should this one get built.
 
maestro said:
It's been said before but, the government has a ton of space in commercial buildings along Bay and Bloor streets. The midtown market is going to take a huge hit should this one get built.
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Ah right, makes sense, they have offices scattered throughout other parts of the city as well but I doubt that's part of the consolidation.

Yep, the midtown market - the buildings in question will be effected quite dramatically - all I can hope for is a more competitive tax system by the time this one opens (which will be a while from now at the very least, 3+ years I'd reckon).
 
Traynor said:
Some of the latest condos going up look like Dr. Suess illustrations, with only one unit per floor. Not to mention that all the newer condos with tiny floor plates are also helping the builders to sell closets as apartments.
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The size of the floorplates have little to do with the size of the units being sold. Floorplates have more to do with planning, architecture, lot sizes, set-back requirements etc. Unit sizes are a generally a reflection of market demand. Average $psf across the GTA now over $450 and with newer releases, especially in the 416 $psf is approaching $550 on average. I'm not going to high-jack the thread, but there are a variety of factors contributing to these prices, and for average middle class buyers and investors, they can't afford larger units, so builders are making units smaller to accomodate demand - if people were buying larger units you could bet on developers building a lot more larger units - (even on small floorplates).
 
slightly off topic, but if this building ever does get built where do the current offices get moved to? can't be that easy to find a lot of affordable office space in that area can it? My apologies if someone has already mentioned where they would relocate to.
 
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