Toronto Clear Spirit | 131.36m | 40s | Cityscape | a—A

[adma]

Sorry, but the few hundred people who will live there won't keep the businesses afloat in the off-season, either.

Useful point--how successful is CityPlace retail, anyway?

At least, if there were a public/institutional function, a state of dormancy would be a little self-justifying (ever noticed how empty and devoid of people a university building can be at certain times? and is there anything wrong with that?)

 

[scarberiankhatru]

When the retail continues to falter after the condo is built and before a critical mass of the WDL comes online, I wonder if another building (whichever's second least useful) will be ritually sacrificed.

 

[alklay]

If we knock them all down, and replace them with 'glorious' and 'improved' condo podiums, with no public access, we will solve all the problems.

(the crowds will come when the surrounding neighbourhoods are developed)

 

[casaguy]

Thank you, Adma.

Sorry, I mean Thank You Andrew3d

 

[Andrew3D]

Sorry, but the few hundred people who will live there won't keep the businesses afloat in the off-season, either...they'd have the same individual impact as someone living in one of the thousands of West Don Lands units across the street.

You speak as if people are living there (West Don Lands). We don't even have blue prints for that area yet, and what would happen if the market crashed? Also a few hundred? Try a couple thousand, plus their friends and families that will frequent the area not to mention all of the other spin off hustle and bustle. I challenge you to go down there mid week and to capture an image of a busy urban environment, I'll even let you cheat and take picture outside the George Brown Campus.


scarberiankhatru, when these new residents say "Let's pop down to the local and grab a pint where is it you think they'll end up? It's not called a local for nothing.

 

[adma]

[NB: I wrote this before your thank-you correction; bear that in mind]

Thank you, Adma.

You've just proved an important point.

Thousands of new residents will INDEED make a difference.

(And their friends, and their famliies and their out-of-town visitors).

It's all about density.

If I may judge by the post you presumably responded to, where did I prove that? I thought a quote like "maybe if G&W were placed to a greater extent in public hands, we'd see something more heritage-POV satisfactory and self-justifying to boot" was totally contrary to the need for a crutch like "thousands of new residents" and "density".

As far as "satisfactory and self-justifying" goes, perhaps it's a "campus" rather than "neighbourhood" model which ought to have defined the future of G&W--and who's arguing for overdensifying campuses? We all know what happened to Thorsell's Planetarium condo scheme.

Even when it comes to the untouristed barrenness within the above photos: within a "campus" model, it'd come across as a kind of justifiable quasi-dormancy rather than cricket-chirping failure...

 

[adma]

scarberiankhatru, when these new residents say "Let's pop down to the local and grab a pint where is it you think they'll end up? It's not called a local for nothing.

I miss the Canary.

 

[Andrew3D]

When the retail continues to falter after the condo is built and before a critical mass of the WDL comes online, I wonder if another building (whichever's second least useful) will be ritually sacrificed.

You and others are being so alarmist. Sad really because only one building is being removed, no more but whatever helps your cause.


That being said this was my favorite picture i took there today, even with one of the new evil towers looming over the poor old Distillery.

​

So what makes a working community? Or are we happy with this Industrial Theme park the way it is?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I don't care how tall the buildings are...I'd support making them even taller.

You speak as if people are living there (West Don Lands). We don't even have blue prints for that area yet, and what would happen if the market crashed? Also a few hundred? Try a couple thousand, plus their friends and families that will frequent the area not to mention all of the other spin off hustle and bustle. I challenge you to go down there mid week and to capture an image of a busy urban environment, I'll even let you cheat and take picture outside the George Brown Campus.


scarberiankhatru, when these new residents say "Let's pop down to the local and grab a pint where is it you think they'll end up? It's not called a local for nothing.

I don't speak as if there are people living there...I said "would." Maybe the market will crash - how does that help the distillery or your argument? You speak as if Clear Spirit will permit the district to keep 50 more waitresses on staff in February and that condo residents will continuously have family and friends visiting them. There's a few hundred units planned for the building replacing the rack house - for Clear Spirit to have more than a completely insignificant impact on the retail, pretty much everyone living there (plus their perpetual entourages) would have to patronize the shops and bars every single day and spend quite a bit of money to counter the residents that will have nothing to do with the district. Even then, it still won't be enough for Clear Spirit alone to save the area.

 

[Andrew3D]

You're right all the new residence will be broke penniless bastards with no friends or families who will stay in all winter long until Groundhog Willie says it's safe to venture outside again. And I bet the few with cash will only shop at Big Box stores in the burbs and dine at Boston Pizza.

 

[ShonTron]

That wasn't what Scarberian was saying. I agree with him - the towers themselves aren't going to make the district's retail viable on their own.

Andrew, I have found you to be quite condensending towards anyone who has an opnion different from yours. Words like "arguments as weak as NIMBY's" and "queue the violins". It has become annoying, even though I understand and respect your basic arguments, though I strongly disagree. Could you at least respect others' arguments?

 

[Andrew3D]

Sorry, I tend to forget that some people have thinner skin then others so I'll try and tone it down. In fact I'll stay out of this discussion from now on because it's clear the two sides aren't going to find any sort of common ground here.

 

[AndreaPalladio]

It's a national historic site. We've gone through this before.

It was a national historic site when Soulpepper gutted two of the buildings to build its theater in their shells. Do you oppose that too, or do your strict preservationist principles only apply to apartments?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

You're right all the new residence will be broke penniless bastards with no friends or families who will stay in all winter long until Groundhog Willie says it's safe to venture outside again. And I bet the few with cash will only shop at Big Box stores in the burbs and dine at Boston Pizza.

That's far more likely than having a few hundred residents who spend all their money in the Distillery (which still won't be nearly enough to stave off disaster during the off-season). How many people are in your entourage?

It was a national historic site when Soulpepper gutted two of the buildings to build its theater in their shells. Do you oppose that too, or do your strict preservationist principles only apply to apartments?

The interiors would have to be changed to accommodate a theatre, naturally. Plumbing updated, dividing walls moved, etc.

 

[Urban Shocker]

The retail will evolve, obviously, just as it does everywhere else. Theatre companies will come and go too, as will the businesses that rent office space there, and the people who live in the condos. I don't think the joint has to be jumpin' 24 hours a day - if it did, the residents would be the first to complain about the Clubland II noise level. King and Bay is enjoyable in a different way on a Sunday afternoon than it is during the week, and that's part of an ebb and flow of city living that's repeated all over town - in traditional low-rise residential neighbourhoods that are busy at weekends but quiet during the week when everyone is at work and the kids are at school, for instance.

Opinions on the Distillery District threads have been clearly expressed, and I think Andrew has made several good points. Some others, who quip that all the buildings should be knocked down and replaced with condo podiums with no public access, clearly even inhale once in a while, and that's fine too.

adma raises the "campus" model, but I'd go more for the Tuscan hill town one: a destination, different from the surrounding lands, rooted in history, and alive with new life - both residents and visitors. At the creative, conceptual re-think level it's useful to select such analogues ( several of them even ) and take things that already work as inspiration for what the imagination can create in a new development. The other road - alarmist as Andrew describes it - is to try and link this development to other places that are different in order to prove that the Distillery District can't possibly work because it isn't just like them.