Toronto One Thirty Eight | 144.05m | 31s | Cityzen | BBB

Shame to see the brick arches of the interior courtyard disappear. :( It looks so cold and sterile in that fly-through video.
 
I hope the base of this building contains storefronts on Yorkville and Avenue. From the picture, it looks like nothing more than a mall entrance (which would really be a disservice to the area). Yorkville is certainly quickly losing the charm of small quaint stores in a village like atmosphere.
 
The podium of this building looks very much like all the other new condos going up. It has no distinctive features. It's hard to tell the difference from this development, 1 Bloor, the new Holt Renfrew or the other near by proposals. They all sort of look the same at street level. (lots of clear, flat glass with a bit of colour, here and there) Developers are giving us this bland, boring look all over the city. I'd much prefer the red brick and arches. At least that had a bit of character.
 
Looks like they dropped a new suburban shopping mall on top of Hazelton Lanes.
 
I don't particularly care for the new design either but the mall currently isn't working - I think almost half of the retail space is vacant - so something has to be done to make it attractive to retailers and for whatever reason it currently isn't. So I think a redesign is needed - the question is whether something better and more imaginative can be done than currently proposed and will it be attractive to retailers.
 
Front page story here puts two and two together.

42+2
 
Just look at the hideous podium! These developers don't care about Yorkville's low rise brick and mortar charm.
 
gabe said:
Just look at the hideous podium! These developers don't care about Yorkville's low rise brick and mortar charm.
Click to expand...

Some people cared in the 1970s when they chose to renovate and build careful additions to Yorkville's appealing built form, as demonstrated in the buildings that are supposed to be demolished for this development. That was in response to downtown development in the 1960s, which happened without regard to heritage or low-rise built forms that are appealing as the core of a neighbourhood's identity and sense of place. But now we're dealing with the same crap from the 1960s again.
 
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