Toronto Forma | 308m | 84s | Great Gulf | Gehry Partners

Is the Princess of Wales theatre also being demolished or is that not part of the development?
 
Star Fox said:
If I may ask, what's so terrible about the space? Doesn't seem bad from the outside.
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The space is not terrible. I have been in the space a while ago and it’s actually a cool space but it’s very specific and narrow which limits the kind of commercial space that could properly function here. It looks like the space was designed to be a restaurant but King Street commands very high rent and very few restaurant operators are willing to commit to such an undertaking. I believe in the beginning a Morimoto restaurant was anticipated here but the deal fell through.
The recessed plaza could be a really nice patio area for the restaurant if that is allowed, and a nice compliment to Forma’s base when that is completed (but that could be 8 years).
 
...it will be integrated into the podium business to my understanding, with hopefully all the loving care that was afforded to Massey Hall of recent.
 
Oh nice!
 
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The market may be going downwards right now but what will it be in 4 years when this is built?
 
Koops65 said:
The market may be going downwards right now but what will it be in 4 years when this is built?
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The first tower went on sale when the market was already sputtering, and it sold well. Gehry brings more than the usual amount of market attraction with him, it seems.
Star Fox said:
If I may ask, what's so terrible about the space? Doesn't seem bad from the outside.
Click to expand...
IIRC it's laid out in a way that makes a restaurant difficult to operate efficiently, not enough space on the ground floor to fit a full kitchen unless all the food gets run up to the mezzanine level, and same issue with up there, you'd have run half the food downstairs if the kitchen went up there. Whatever it was, at the rents they were planning to charge, no one was able to make it work. With a wine club going in, I assume they've given up on high rents there, and the club will likely get by with far smaller kitchen spaces.

42
 
interchange42 said:
The first tower went on sale when the market was already sputtering, and it sold well. Gehry brings more than the usual amount of market attraction with him, it seems.

IIRC it's laid out in a way that makes a restaurant difficult to operate efficiently, not enough space on the ground floor to fit a full kitchen unless all the food gets run up to the mezzanine level, and same issue with up there, you'd have run half the food downstairs if the kitchen went up there. Whatever it was, at the rents they were planning to charge, no one was able to make it work. With a wine club going in, I assume they've given up on high rents there, and the club will likely get by with far smaller kitchen spaces.

42
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You got most of it, interchange. Another big issue was the physical disconnect between the loading bay and the space itself. The extremely tight site meant that while they are technically corridor-connected, all loading needs to go through the garbage area and up a set of stairs to get into the unit itself. Likewise, all garbage needs to go down those stairs to the bin storage area. Not ideal from a restaurant operations perspective, especially if your kitchen is up on the second floor which would involve the construction of a LULA lift / hydraulic elevator, potentially at the tenants' expense.

End of the day, no one was interested in taking on all that extra scope for a space of limited size, hence it's sat vacant for close to 10 years now.
 
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