Toronto 66 Wellesley Street East | 101.78m | 31s | ONE Properties | S9

Good god. First that Rail Deck Park fiasco now this. I can't ever remember being so disappointed in Toronto ...........and then it gets worse. A few more like this and maybe it's time to give up on this place. Of the 12 people closest to me, 5 have already gone. My faith and confidence in Toronto has been shaken.
 
Interesting: according to the ONE Properties site, a “a 25,100 sq. ft. Farm Boy grocery store on the second floor”. Not sure that’s remotely redeeming for the nosedive in design... but it’s something.
 
i hope the city shoots it down like they did with the 3XN design. if we cant have 3XN we dont want the Dollar Store crap.
 
I'm not surprised that the original design was scrapped. The massive staircase occupying a MASSIVE amount of the ground floor space that would otherwise be retail looked really good in the fantasy renderings..it also looked like it could seat over a hundred people on that staircase... but for what purpose ? I get the historical reference to the famous steps of Church of Wellesley across the street but they are no more and haven't been for at least two decades. Imagine trying to sell a condo unit in that building by boasting; "and at the main entrance we have a massive staircase that can hold over a 100 people who can walk into the building off of the street and loiter on our massive staircase" How is that a selling point?

That said I'm not crazy about this new design and I especially don't like how it proposes to swallow up the multi-unit brick rental building on the west side of the site. What happens to the residents of that handsome brick building (with the dentist office on the ground floor) ? I thought that there were bylaws protecting residents of multi-unit apartment buildings from being evicted to make way for yet another condo?

I live in a 11 storey rental apartment in a prime location in downtown Toronto and I worry that I could someday be evicted to make way for a garbage project like this.
 
Quint said:
I'm not surprised that the original design was scrapped. The massive staircase occupying a MASSIVE amount of the ground floor space that would otherwise be retail looked really good in the fantasy renderings..it also looked like it could seat over a hundred people on that staircase... but for what purpose ? I get the historical reference to the famous steps of Church of Wellesley across the street but they are no more and haven't been for at least two decades. Imagine trying to sell a condo unit in that building by boasting; "and at the main entrance we have a massive staircase that can hold over a 100 people who can walk into the building off of the street and loiter on our massive staircase" How is that a selling point?

That said I'm not crazy about this new design and I especially don't like how it proposes to swallow up the multi-unit brick rental building on the west side of the site. What happens to the residents of that handsome brick building (with the dentist office on the ground floor) ? I thought that there were bylaws protecting residents of multi-unit apartment buildings from being evicted to make way for yet another condo?

I live in a 11 storey rental apartment in a prime location in downtown Toronto and I worry that I could someday be evicted to make way for a garbage project like this.
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Tenants could always be evicted for new construction. The builder only has to replace the rental units and offer the displaced residents right of first refusal.
 
ushahid said:
i hope the city shoots it down like they did with the 3XN design. if we cant have 3XN we dont want the Dollar Store crap.
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The City is going to shoot down any building here that's a tower, as the area is zoned for low-rise and the Councillor is dead set against this type of development, so you're safe until the OMB approves yet another G+C spandrel nightmare 2-3 years from now.
 
On the new design...........agree with others who have referenced it as banal and overbearing.

Working with this as a base, one will never turn it into something great, but I feel some fairly minor changes could make it better.

1621435271054.png


Take the corner of squared off glass with fins, and round it to match the tower.

Make the feel of the podium just a bit less corporate.

Find a way to make it interact w/the sidewalk better to create greater animation. I played with a couple of ideas around shifting the building entrance to the corner and creation of a inset space....

But I'm not satisfied that it works. But I'm sure something is plausible here at a reasonable cost, within the existing envelope (mostly).
 
mcornett said:
The City is going to shoot down any building here that's a tower, as the area is zoned for low-rise and the Councillor is dead set against this type of development, so you're safe until the OMB approves yet another G+C spandrel nightmare 2-3 years from now.
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Not sure I agree with you on the fight...With the acquisition of 64 Wellesley St. E., this tower might now be considered more of a “Wellesley St.” tower than a tower on Church. Dare I say slightly more appropriate, potentially, given the Plaza tower on the other side of the parkette on Wellesley. That would leave the mid/low-rise bit, resembling other new dev blocks along Church.

Remember there was also an LPAT hearing in December 2020- so this may very well be the settlement...? Who knows?

The fight may now be to ensure the community gets the section 37 benefits it deserves.
 
The 4 story step-backs above the podium clash badly with the tower. It's like a mid-rise on Dupont being tacked on Stanley Condos down the street on Church.
 
Let's not forget much of why the old proposal isn't getting built is because city hall rejected it for not fitting the nearby area (Despite there being several buildings just as tall nearby, and it being walking distance from a subway station).

Here's a google street view shot I took that shows the surrounding area perfectly fitting a high rise :
Screen Shot 2021-05-19 at 11.35.18 PM.png


City hall rejecting the previous proposal (The stairs were a bit much, but overall it looked fine) caused a 2 year delay, and now we get the current proposal. Instead of the unique podium design the architects wanted, they instead went with incorporating a heritage base because they're worried city hall will designate the current building as heritage (It's not yet, but they don't want another years-long delay from another rejection).

It was the city that rejected the rezoning application for the podium.

The number of units also gets reduced because of the height decrease likely requested by city hall, resulting in 8 less homes and half the retail density in an area right next to mass transit.
 
Redflorist said:
Let's not forget much of why the old proposal isn't getting built is because city hall rejected it for not fitting the nearby area (Despite there being several buildings just as tall nearby, and it being walking distance from a subway station).

Here's a google street view shot I took that shows the surrounding area perfectly fitting a high rise :
View attachment 321073

City hall rejecting the previous proposal (The stairs were a bit much, but overall it looked fine) caused a 2 year delay, and now we get the current proposal. Instead of the unique podium design the architects wanted, they instead went with incorporating a heritage base because they're worried city hall will designate the current building as heritage (It's not yet, but they don't want another years-long delay from another rejection).

It was the city that rejected the rezoning application for the podium.

The number of units also gets reduced because of the height decrease likely requested by city hall, resulting in 8 less homes and half the retail density in an area right next to mass transit.
Click to expand...
But I wonder why they shifted away from 3XN? I imagine they could have developed a better solution than this pile of sh*t. I imagine it came down to $$$$$$$.
 
Redflorist said:
Let's not forget much of why the old proposal isn't getting built is because city hall rejected it for not fitting the nearby area (Despite there being several buildings just as tall nearby, and it being walking distance from a subway station).

Here's a google street view shot I took that shows the surrounding area perfectly fitting a high rise :
View attachment 321073

City hall rejecting the previous proposal (The stairs were a bit much, but overall it looked fine) caused a 2 year delay, and now we get the current proposal. Instead of the unique podium design the architects wanted, they instead went with incorporating a heritage base because they're worried city hall will designate the current building as heritage (It's not yet, but they don't want another years-long delay from another rejection).

It was the city that rejected the rezoning application for the podium.

The number of units also gets reduced because of the height decrease likely requested by city hall, resulting in 8 less homes and half the retail density in an area right next to mass transit.
Click to expand...

The original proposal was WAY too aggressive, and at that time they did NOT own the existing apartment building to the west. They still don't even own the laneway that they were trying to build on.

Your theory seems to be totally flawed. The City (IMHO) was totally right to reject the original proposal. That is not a BAD thing as you're suggesting. If we apply your logic to any other site in the city, then the approach would be to come in with a ridiculously aggressive application from the start, and then cheap out once the City rejects you, and then blame the City for your new, crappy application.

The better approach would be to come in from the start with a solid, thoughtful and defensible application that actually meets policy and built form objectives (beyond just high-rise development near a subway).
 
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