Toronto Bridgepoint Hospital | 61.87m | 10s | Bridgepoint Health | Diamond Schmitt

Torontovibe said:
What a waste of a really interesting building. I think it should have been turned into a prison museum/attraction. I took the tour a while back and it was quite informative.
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I like the prison museum idea.

In Kingston they turned the old warden's house adjacent to the penitentiary into a museum--it gets a lot of traffic.

Quite interesting...
 
Since they're closing down the entire Kingston Penitentiary anways, it would be a cool idea to turn the entire thing into a museum.
 
Some odd shots of the building. Although really quite large I like details such as the mirrors on the undersides of the overhangs and the wood of the exposed ceilings that make this an interesting and more human scaled structure close up. Photos taken 9 February 2013.

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An update of the neighbouring Warden's House which is being converted into a children's hospice.

http://www.philipazizcentre.ca/childrens-hospice-set-for-march-opening-needs-to-fundraise-final-900000/

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Thanks rdaner. Has anyone seen the final plans for the new park/forecourt/plaza in front of Don Jail? Apparently it was revealed last year but I couldn't find any info on it.

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Xray:

It's P3/AFP through IO, I doubt that it is substantially pricier than similar-scaled hospital projects (by bed count).

AoD
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For those who may not be familiar with the acronyms - Bridgepoint, like may of the other hospitals which have been built recently, or are currently under construction, along with the Province's new natural gas fired power plants, are done using Public Private Partnership (PPP or P3) model. The private partners who win the competition build the facility using their own financing (the AFM or Alternate Financing Methods), with their security being a long term contract for the use and ongoing payments by the Province. In this way, the Province is not responsible for the construction costs and associated debt up front, it is essentially 'off-balance sheet' for the Province. The 'IO' refers to Infrastructure Ontario - which is the Province's contracting agency for projects of this nature.

Not to say the Province does not have a debt problem - but it was not due to projects like this. Such projects affect the Province's future cash flow obligations only, for the project's operating and lease costs etc.
 
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Thanks for that explanation, AHK. I was a little confused with those abbreviations. In my opinion, the method you described is absolutely ridiculous. The province doesn't have cash for something, so it allows the private sector to build it, and charge a premium for tenancy. In the long term, this is a much more costly alternative and misappropriation of public funds.

As for debt vs. cash flow; those are just semantics. Sustained deficit (lower cash flow) = debt.
 
DtTO said:
Thanks for that explanation, AHK. I was a little confused with those abbreviations. In my opinion, the method you described is absolutely ridiculous. The province doesn't have cash for something, so it allows the private sector to build it, and charge a premium for tenancy. In the long term, this is a much more costly alternative and misappropriation of public funds.

As for debt vs. cash flow; those are just semantics. Sustained deficit (lower cash flow) = debt.
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One clearly needs to use caution BUT P3 is a bit like a mortgage. It enables one to have something many years before one can afford it.
 
junctionist said:
It looks great in those photos from up close, but from more distant vintage points like Riverdale Park, it looks too massive for its geographic context in the Don Valley.
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And as such, it also has the kind of awkwardness I identify w/highway overpasses that do a bit of an S-curve to dodge (in a bit of a constructional sleight-of-hand) the now-gone earlier structures they replaced...
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Thanks rdaner. Has anyone seen the final plans for the new park/forecourt/plaza in front of Don Jail? Apparently it was revealed last year but I couldn't find any info on it.

AoD
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http://www.bridgepointhealth.ca/uploads/About Us/Changing the Landscape September 2012_final.pdf

The September issue of the newsletter made mention of the labyrinth + Don Jail forecourt. Render shows Don Jail Roadway and the surface parking gone, but I don't think that's new as it doesn't mention the Aziz reno at all.
 
The half-round has a hobbit-like character - blending into the landscape, reflecting the nature of the river valley before it reaches this point. The new building better reflects the industrial linearity of the channelled river bed it sits next too. Plans for the mouth of the Don (if realized) will produce a more natural feeling environment - I would have liked if development along the channel didn't impose the sense of city - so that a walk from Pottery Road to the lake could be a unified departure from density. Its all very well that patients will look out onto verdure, but the building itself doesn't mesh with the park.
 
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