Toronto KING Toronto | 57.6m | 16s | Westbank | Bjarke Ingels Group

What a disaster on so many levels. First, there's the obvious "f-k you" to heritage, but secondly, there's the fact that an office project of this size in this part of downtown will dump thousands of workers onto the most overloaded streetcar lines in the city, almost 2 km away from the nearest subway station.
 
Actually, I jumped the gun too early. Exploring the map and looking at the render, it seems as if the modern structure on King Street is planned where the asian restaurant currently sits.

Looks like the heritage buildings on King won't be touched, and we'll get more offices in the area. I'm waiting to see how they plan on handling the heritage buildings at Wellington, but overall it's a decent project for the area.

Some clarifications here. It looks like the original render incorporated 485 King Street West, the narrow but deep low-rise building on the left (east) side of the project. Allied has not, to my knowledge, been able to acquire the 485 King building - at least as of yet. The new render shows incorporation of 489 King Street West, 499 King Street West (the single story former car dealership building, now Spice Route - to be demolished), and 495 King Street West - the building along the back (south) edge of the property, which would also be demolished. Again, my understanding is that the redevelopment was intended to incorporate the the 485 King Street West building - but I have no current information on exactly how much of that is still in the plan. It does look to me like the application notice board render does show the view from the south, in other words the back of the building.

I suspect that in the current application, the footprint of the 485 King West building no longer being included is the reason the size being proposed goes from being 500,000 square feet, to the current 405,447 square feet (37,667 square metres).

Regarding the issue of the King Street Car line - the heaviest traffic is still to and from the downtown area, although agreed that the 'against the traffic' flows, westbound in the morning, and eastbound in the afternoon, have picked up quite a bit over the past few years. With all the new residential condominiums coming on line in King West, Liberty Village, etc., adding the anticipated population from this building to the 'against the traffic' flow should be the least of the King Street transit problems. The additional capacity of the new streetcars coming soon on the King Street Line - needed to handle the morning inbound and evening outbound traffic - should result in capacity to handle the planned development - which if approved, would come well after the new streetcars are running.
 
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This can't really be happening, can it? The building to be demolished is one of a handful which totally define that stretch of King Street as one of the most interesting and pleasant historic streetscapes we have in this city.
 
Completely unacceptable, a simple facadectomy would have still fit into the massing. Have the heritage board and local councillor been notified yet?

2011-2012 is a bad year for our mid-rise warehouse stock. First the one near Queen Street, then the whole Gehry Block, and now this?
 

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