Toronto 245 Queen Street East | 94.3m | 25s | ONE Properties | Graziani + Corazza

torontologist said:
lol.... you must hate Paris and Barcelona, crammed with all those short stubby buildings.
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I agree with him here. Toronto's not an old historic European city, It won't ever be that nor should it strive to replicate that. This is a low density neighbourhood full of functionally obsolete buildings. This is also a city growing at breakneck speed looking for places to put every one. If they're going to start putting 120m buildings up here they're not making efficient use of valuable real estate. They're under-estimating demand, as usual. It's mismanagement this city can ill afford.

The idea that buildings must steadily get shorter the further away from Yonge is bizarre, impractical, and just doesn't make sense in many places. This is such an area. The demand for downtown condos is huge and the space finite. We should be going taller, not shorter. We're not a medium sized city but Toronto still carries on like one.

When people encourage Toronto to start thinking like a big global city, this is exactly what they're talking about. I'm not arguing we should go tall everywhere but, for heaven's sake, build scale where you can do so. And just watch, when they get around to re-doing Moss Park they'll not make efficient use of that green space either. They'll stick buildings on part of it instead of increased density on the periphery of it.
 
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I'm not opposed to one nice tall point tower however, three mediocre slab disrupts the context that has been developed during this very same boom. It takes more than just building at greater and greater heights to build great neighbourhoods. I have yet to see anything factual to back up your alarmist claims. I can easily say value and demand go up and down with the cyclical nature of real estate. Toronto is consistently approving densities exceeding the maximums allowed in most major cities around the world.
 
Seems there was a consult last night:

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https://twitter.com/JamesParakh/status/991158441707126784
 
At first glance I liked it. Upon refection I believe the original facades/buildings could be a little more 'independent' from the tower(s). Similar to 1 Yorkville where the tower is set back a few meters to allow the historical building to stand alone. It seems that this has happened in one older building.
 

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Marcanadian said:
City Planning recommends sending staff to oppose the project at LPAT:

http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2018.TE33.17
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Thank goodness this appeal was in before OMB reform (I think?)! Hopefully we'll see something built here...

Of course the revised height still isn't satisfactory to the planning department:

The application was revised in March 2018 and represents an improvement from the original submission submitted in February 2016 and a first revised proposal submitted in December 2016. However, the current proposal’s massing and height still do not fit within the existing built form context of the King-Parliament area.

I'm curious what height would be suitable here for the city. Planning seems really stringent to me and so out of touch with the reality of the economics behind a development. I understand that's not their chief concern, but it just seems negligent and impractical to not take that into consideration.

I preferred the previous scheme. It's too bad they've ditched it.
 
Here's hoping the architects are saying "there's no architecture here yet, this is just a massing plan" because it looks like a thoughtless mess to me… the problem just being that the massing is terrible too: what about that park insertion in that spot is inviting or beneficial to the city (because that's what the 10% park space dedication is supposed to be: a benefit for the city)?

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WislaHD said:
Well it might not be tasteful or jive with architectural sense.

But if you ask me, as a pedestrian and sidewalk end-user, the facade works well.
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They plan to tear off the roof, put up a glass addition and, leave the gables. Post #309; last rendering; left side. It's not normal.
 
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