Toronto 365 Church Condos | 102.1m | 31s | Menkes | Wallman Architects

Lyphe said:
Out of curiosity, how does something like this pass the design review process?
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Perhaps Menkes intentionally value-engineered (cheaped out) on this development after the design review process permitted it.

TI
 
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Site Plan Approval is where the City secures details of the exterior. The City has little ability to demand architectural improvements based on aesthetics: they can only hold things up for a design failing to meet planning standards. Market demand is supposed to take care of the aesthetic concerns, but it clearly does not. Meanwhile, I haven't seen the Design Review Panel be too activist when it comes to architectural expression yet in general (and without the time to look it up right now, I'm not sure if they saw this design or what they might have said about it), as they mostly comment on site plan, public realm, and massing issues: more easily quantifiable things. Not that they never comment on aesthetics, but that is a very hard area to regulate.

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It's so frustrating how people use the excuse of "the market should control aesthetics" because it clearly isn't. So people resolve to see permanent ugly monoliths intrude on our city with only the developer benefiting. I'm sorry but that excuse doesn't cut it for me. Could we expedite proposals that promise quality materials and design? I don't know exactly what that system would look like, but it might be worth exploring. We will only start to see quality designs when developers see a real financial incentive in doing so. We also need to make it cost something to value engineer quality materials out after approvals. I would be livid if I purchased a unit only to find out the palette I was sold on cheapened after my deposit was in.
 
In all fairness, if I was a purchaser looking at the glossy brochures during pre-sales, how could anyone know that this was going to be the final product?
At the end of the day, no one really cares what the exterior looks like. It's about the insides - the finishings, the appliances etc. Yes, from the outside this is a POS, but to the everyday consumer, does that really matter? Will that affect resale value?
Will that view be compromised? Probably not.
 
Actually, I would expect that an ugly exterior would affect sales prices somewhat. Not a huge amount, but there'd be some difference.

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Logan said:
In all fairness, if I was a purchaser looking at the glossy brochures during pre-sales, how could anyone know that this was going to be the final product?
At the end of the day, no one really cares what the exterior looks like. It's about the insides - the finishings, the appliances etc. Yes, from the outside this is a POS, but to the everyday consumer, does that really matter? Will that affect resale value?
Will that view be compromised? Probably not.
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Location comes first but, I definitely would say consumers do care how the exterior looks like. They just are being and have been overshadowed by the speculators for the past long while and into the indefinite future.
 
maestro said:
Location comes first but, I definitely would say consumers do care how the exterior looks like. They just are being and have been overshadowed by the speculators for the past long while and into the indefinite future.
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Speculators do not care about the exterior. Many times they're putting down $ before even seeing the exterior.
 
TheKingEast said:
Speculators do not care about the exterior. Many times they're putting down $ before even seeing the exterior.
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This is very true, foreign investors, mostly from China are buying what ever they can and don't really care about what it looks like. The house I'm finishing up now was purchased by a foreign investor when they had just started pouring the foundation....didn't even look at what it was going to look like when completed!
 
Today:

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