Toronto Canoe Landing Park | ?m | ?s | Concord Adex

If this park can accommodate concerts and events such as food festivals, it will be a success. Looking at the layout though, I don't know if that's a possibility, as those two tents take up a large chunk of that lower right quadrant and beside that lies that ridiculous, synthetic silliness.

We have a park here in the downtown part of St.Catharines called Montebello Park. It's a nice enough park (designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who designed Central Park) with it's large, old trees and its pleasant layout. Passing by on an average day in the summer, you might see at most, 50 people in the park. It's real purpose - mainly during weekends - is to host various functions such as Ribfest, and during our wine festival, it hosts the most important events, like concerts and the like. Because of those things, it's a great, community park. I don't feel Cityplace park will have a chance to be what Montebello is to its community.
 
Everyone's complaining that Coupland's plans have been gutted to an extent though, so how is one to tell what to blame him for, and what to blame on Concord?

In regards to the synthetic grassed section, it's obviously to be used as a sports field, and I will defer my opinion on that until people who have used it to play soccer, or whatever else, have weighed in on their experience playing on it. Why jump to the conclusion that it's crappy until it has been proven so, or otherwise, by use?

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Cityplace park

taken this morning, iphone pic so not the best quality
 

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Aren't the dirt patches to left and right of the park (top and bottom of screen) supposed to be part of the park too?
 
It was Coupland who designed the park on paper. It was Concord that executed it in more ways than one. The open area where the sports field is located was in the original design so how it works for a soccer player is irrelevant. The issue is that the paths and border of the park have been seriously cheaped. What once had patterns, planters, and shapes is now a straight sidewalk with grass on both sides which is completely boring. Of the original plan the only things kept was the elevations, the canoe, the oval, the open areas, and the cross shape of the sidewalk. All the other elements that made the park interesting to look at were removed.
 
EnviroTO said:
The open area where the sports field is located was in the original design so how it works for a soccer player is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Some people are complaining about the fake grass used for the sports field. Why would it be irrelevant if a soccer player enjoyed or didn't enjoy playing on the fake grass? In terms of the complaints about the fake grass, of course it's relevant.

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I actually think fake grass is better than real grass. Undoubtedly, people will be trampling all over it. Grass will die if too many people step on them. Also the city won't need to upkeep it like watering or mowing the lawn. It will save the city money. I find the hill should have been made with astroturf. CP put grass there and I saw it grow from green to tall yellow to dirty yellow now. With fake grass, you also won't need to worry about dandelion puffs. I'm sure some may have allergies to the puffs.
 
Why not plastic trees and artifical flowers too? That way we can eliminate all the work and inconsistency of nature.
 
Seriously AKS? Other than on a sports field, fake grass would be cringeworthy.

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Well, unless the parks can be well maintained, having natural grass needs a lot of up keeping. Is the city willing to keep the park well kept? Also with the schools being built, there will be a lot of kids running over the grass as well as other people using it. I don't know if the grass would end up dying from so much abuse. I also find dandelion puffs to be annoying. I avoid parks full of dandelion puffs. I don't know if some may even have allergies towards them. What about people with asthma?
 
interchange42 said:
Some people are complaining about the fake grass used for the sports field. Why would it be irrelevant if a soccer player enjoyed or didn't enjoy playing on the fake grass? In terms of the complaints about the fake grass, of course it's relevant.
Click to expand...

I must have missed people complaining about the grass. All the complaints I saw were about the cheapening of the design. At no time did any plan indicate that the sports field would be real or artificial so from the perspective of cheapening out it is irrelevant. If the artificial grass is of good quality I don't see the problem. Most people don't notice the fake grass at Harbourfront is artificial until they stand on it and if the grass at Harbourfront wasn't fake it would turn to compacted dirt by the end of the summer and never grow grass. However, one difference at Harbourfront is that all the grass is artificial, not just a segment of it. From all perspectives it will be obvious that part of the park's grass is artificial and part is not. It would probably have lead to a better finished if all the grass had the same treatment (real or artificial).
 
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