Toronto 540 King West | 50.66m | 15s | Allied | Hariri Pontarini

voxpopulicosmicum said:
It's the Genco marine building:

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That is a gorgeous building. If I'm not mistaken you don't see a lot of buildings of that deco-gothic style built with that colour brick? Shame to lose it.
 
The details are great, but overall it looks pretty sad in its current state. Previous rennovations haven't left much room for dignity -- the rennovated windows and parking lot are really terrible. I don't think it's doing much for the street right now.

From the news article,
Allied Properties plans to reuse beams, connectors and some of the brick from the old buildings in the new one, which will feature as many attributes of the neighbourhood's heritage properties as possible.
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I think the end result will look better than this poor, descecrated building.
 
There've been worse desecrations than this--at least the brick parts are whole.

Still, it's more or less "expendable", unless Adam Vaughan slaps a heritage-district thing upon King West...
 
Too bad they couldn't use the 2 end sections and middle 2 brick vertical columns on the front of a new building. Imagine a sheer curtain wall of glass between the brick work giving a great anchor to the building. Make the doors on both ends large glass doors with a great restaurant and large patio out front.
 
maestro said:
I don't know but Morrison should be extended to King with the kind of density proposed and under construction,
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I once read somewhere that Morrison was to connect King and Adelaide as only a pathway and not as a street.
 
^ Now there's an idea! The couple of pedestrian pathways that exist between King and Wellington show how wonderful this can be and how much it adds to a hood like this one.
 
The pedestrian pathways are a great asset to the area as they help to split up some of the large east-west blocks. In addition to what is there, a new pathway will cut through the 550 Wellington site (with a public fountain and ice rink in winter). The same path extends south through Victoria Memorial Park with intentions of it continuing south to Front St. beside the Aloft Hotel site. Hopefully it will be extended north of Stewart St. to King if and when the Travelodge Hotel site gets redeveloped. When the Gobe and Mail site gets redeveloped (and it will, it has been looked at for a while now) there will be more connections between Front and Wellington. Now if only the Portland St. pedestrian bridge over the rail tracks into CityPlace would get built then there will be plenty of pedestrian pathways in the area.
 
Seems like this building, as with so many along main commercial thoroughfares in Toronto, could easily afford a few more floors in height for much sought-after condo space, keeping the heritage levels for what clearly has the potential to be extraordinary commercial space. Isn't the developer in question supposedly concerned about heritage preservation? Why are they getting such an easy pass on this? Is a little spin all that is required for the dumping of heritage to build condos these days? Will Kate end up with Sawyer or Jack? Oops, sorry, was getting away with the questions here...
 
Tearing this little building down, even though it's of marginal value, still seems short-sighted. We don't really care for it now, but as we replace substantial little buildings with hastily constructed boxes, we're going to wish we had kept more traces of this style around.
 
^ I have to agree. The Pizza Pizza and Grand and Toy could disappear, but "the look" of King in that general area is embodied in that structure. With all the new construction in the vicinity, the neighbourhood could end up being a victim of its own success.


Please note that I said could.
 
I still think this area will be better off after the office development, since this building really isn't doing much more for the street than the Pizza Pizza and Grand & Toy next door.

The developer even intends to use some of the original brick and beams from the existing structure, so I don't see how this isn't win-win.
 
grey said:
I still think this area will be better off after the office development, since this building really isn't doing much more for the street than the Pizza Pizza and Grand & Toy next door.

The developer even intends to use some of the original brick and beams from the existing structure, so I don't see how this isn't win-win.
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It's only win-win from a development and density perspective. It's a loss, no matter how you cut it, to the city's architectural heritage. Reusing some of this buildings material is a mitigating factor, but how successful that aspect will be remains to be seen.

The area would be better off if developers stuck to stalking the Pizza Pizzas and Discount Gas stations on King.
 
why not wait for a rendering ... perhaps the intention is to move the building's facade (yeah, I know) closer to the curb with a setbacked addtion to the rear.
 
I wasn't clear on this from the discussion a few pages ago, but does this development include demolishing the building containing Zoe's?
 
That'd be a shame. Zoe's has been a fixture there for quite a while.
 
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