I've watched this thread closely since the watering down was unveiled, sometimes with amusement, sometimes in horror as certain posters slag one another for their opinions. I've got the time to opine a little.
- The latest efforts here smack of some good city-building and some bad, and I hope that the two parties (Mirvish-Gehry and the city planning department) can now meet in the middle.
- Good city-building -- the initial proposal(s) elicited some worry in me, what with all those street-level antics. I got the idea that some sort of theme park was being cooked up. The latest round gives better context. And I like two skyscrapers better than three. Let's face it, the three were too close and the overall effect was too close to a great wall-of-something.
- Sour attitudes seem to be changing. The anti-height people really were given their say, weren't they? I see no problem with even more height than 92 storeys on this site, but 92 is what we are getting as opposed to 88 or 86 or whatever. That's good. It's the "92 storeys of what" that really matters, no? If the two parties can move the 92 and 82 storey skyscrapers closer to the original proposal, that would be a marvellous outcome.
- The bigger picture really must be kept in mind. There is (gasp) real synergy waiting to happen here and I don't want the planning department to blow that potential right out of the water. This Mirvish-Gehry proposal represents the iconic turn that Toronto could use. Remember, there's Roy Thomson Hall and underused, sterile Pecaut Square to the south… with all these things around, the planning department must consider the positive values of a really epic development on the north side of King W. (While I'm here, honestly, isn't it time to start thinking of a restaurant with a Rockefeller Center feeling, in Pecaut Square? Someone must lead us away from food courts here).
- I have no problem with that old warehouse coming down. No one can guilt me into caring about its fate. This is an instance where we have to look toward the future, not at the past, because we can tell that an amazing district is developing on King just west of University, and we have to go with it. As for the theatre staying or going, well I was neutral about that: I've always thought its architecture was merely "convenient" to coin a term. The prospect of an elegant modern art gallery along King W. is more appealing to me, in this instance.