Toronto Rees Park Playground and Pavillion | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

Northern Light said:
The City has been looking everywhere for a spot for an outdoor pool (and and indoor one) for the south Downtown/waterfront community.

A big pool (or pools) likely Olympic in size whether as one pool or two, takes a lot of land area.

They didn't previously consider Rees a viable option, in part due to the intrusion of Toronto Water and Enwave.

To the extent these are no longer an issue, I can see the idea. For the record, I disagree.
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I would not be opposed to an aquatic centre with its back to Queens Quay and a hill or terraced steps leading to the aquatic centre's roof. This would in effect block the Gardiner like the winning competition did and deliver water play to the waterfront. I wouldn't mind seeing an outdoor water feature for warmer months, but an indoor pool at least provides year round use.

Northern Light said:
I just don't think a park in the shadow of the Gardiner is a great idea.
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To be nitpicky, this park will be in the "shadow of the Gardiner" exactly 0 days a year. The Gardiner is north of the park and in the northern hemisphere, the sun is always in the east > south > west.
 
nightstreak said:
I would not be opposed to an aquatic centre with its back to Queens Quay and a hill or terraced steps leading to the aquatic centre's roof. This would in effect block the Gardiner like the winning competition did and deliver water play to the waterfront. I wouldn't mind seeing an outdoor water feature for warmer months, but an indoor pool at least provides year round use.



To be nitpicky, this park will be in the "shadow of the Gardiner" exactly 0 days a year. The Gardiner is north of the park and in the northern hemisphere, the sun is always in the east > south > west.
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The sun will be north of the gardiner for some of the year

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I wonder if the undefined podium space of a few of the proposals for The Portlands would be suitable?
 
rdaner said:
I wonder if the undefined podium space of a few of the proposals for The Portlands would be suitable?
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Maybe in 20 years. It's easy to overlook that the Portlands development will take 20-30 years to fully play out.

The central waterfront has no aquatic facilities for those living there today, unless you live in CityPlace and have access to those amenities—many don't. The fact that a pool was left out of Canoe Landing Park was such a huge lack of foresight.

Scroll back a couple of pages and I was upset with the cancellation of this park. Now, I'm increasingly elated knowing that the opportunity to rethink the park to include much needed aquatic facilities in the central waterfront are now being planned. This can both be an aquatic complex and a park of the same size as had been approved, but now more dynamic and better frequented as it won't just be a park but will have regular foot traffic from those coming and going to the facility year round.
 
Putting it in the Portlands would also require us to build transit from the Central Waterfront to the Portlands, which this City has failed to do over and over and over again. We can almost certainly build an aquatic centre here faster than we will build the Waterfront East streetcar (sadly). Also why not have an aquatic centre here for the Central/Western Waterfront, and then one out there for the Eastern Waterfront. The more the better!
 
An aquatic centre will cost something like $75-million. (The Davisville one was budgeted at $60-million.)

There are already three public rec centres with pools within 3 km of this spot: 1 Yonge, East Bayfront, and St. Lawrence, which is not busy. Lake swimming will be available at the Parliament Slip project. The island ferries are within close walking distance. That’s leaving out the two YMCA’s that are now open downtown, and private pools to which many (albeit not all) residents have access.

Given that resources are limited, and that parks generally are poorly built and maintained, is this a reasonable amount of money to spend on such a project?
 
Great points! And I wonder if there is a location along the western central waterfront that would be suitable for swimming?! Somewhere around Bathurst Quay? Also, perhaps renovating/expanding the Waterfront School/Centre to have more facilities above? Will Alsop could have proposed something workable!
 
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AlexBozikovic said:
An aquatic centre will cost something like $75-million. (The Davisville one was budgeted at $60-million.)

There are already three public rec centres with pools within 3 km of this spot: 1 Yonge, East Bayfront, and St. Lawrence, which is not busy. Lake swimming will be available at the Parliament Slip project. The island ferries are within close walking distance. That’s leaving out the two YMCA’s that are now open downtown, and private pools to which many (albeit not all) residents have access.

Given that resources are limited, and that parks generally are poorly built and maintained, is this a reasonable amount of money to spend on such a project?
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When this started out....the notions were an outdoor pool at Ordnance Park (which was to replace the existing over-sized bathtub that passes for a pool in Stanley Park South) and there had been a hope to put a pool into the Waterfront School at Bathurst/Queen's Quay as an indoor pool serving the lower income area adjacent, and where no indoor pool is nearby.

What's happened as those ideas fell off the table is geographic migration to the east, where the project makes less sense, based largely, I think, on the land being there.

In its new location as either a fully indoor pool or an indoor/outdoor similar to Regent Park, does this still result in closing the bathtub in Stanley Park South, given that that 'pool' is 2km to the north west?

I don't have a problem w/where the project started out, as an outdoor pool replacement, replacing a junky, end-of-life facility with a much better one nearby, and a standard indoor pool, attached to a school, where there was no nearby pool and it could serve a lower income community as well.

Where we've ended up, doesn't make much sense to me.

I've said I'm not comfortable publicly outlining the details of what I've pitched to the City; but I will say, I wanted Rees used for housing, probably private, purpose-built-rental with an affordable component, and through some combination
of cash and/or a landswap, I wanted the park shifted to the south side of Queen's Quay if at all feasible. Were it not feasible, I would still do something different than what's proposed.

It's just not, to my mind, the right site, and ends up sub-optimal for the proposed use, and sub optimal in that there are better uses for this site, and better sites for the proposed use.

I'm ok w/the money, for recreation, but we should achieve the most we can with it; and I don't think this is that.
 
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AlexBozikovic said:
It makes no sense.

The, Claude Cormier plan for ordnance triangle could’ve been built for far less money, and it would instantly have become a landmark in the city.

Another wasted opportunity.

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The pool fell victim to a couple of different things.

One ......is Metrolinx:

The tip of that pool is now an emergency exit for the Ontario Line.


The loss of area was significant.

There were some other issues that crept in, but to me, that was the biggie.

I liked the pool idea here, and if Mx hadn't decided to have the O/L go here and the exit be situated as such, we might still be getting a pool here.

Parks is a very problem plagued division........but you can always count on Mx to make their life even more difficult.
 
Northern Light said:
The pool fell victim to a couple of different things.

One ......is Metrolinx:

The tip of that pool is now an emergency exit for the Ontario Line.


The loss of area was significant.

There were some other issues that crept in, but to me, that was the biggie.

I liked the pool idea here, and if Mx hadn't decided to have the O/L go here and the exit be situated as such, we might still be getting a pool here.

Parks is a very problem plagued division........but you can always count on Mx to make their life even more difficult.
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Oh yay another thing Metrolinx caused that everyone will blame the City for instead of them!

(I'm so tired lol)
 
AlexBozikovic said:
It’s a fair point, and Metrolinx has much to answer for, but the current plan for Ordinance Triangle Park is abysmal. There’s still room to put a pool here. Instead…

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We agree, this is what I had to say about this last year:

Northern Light said:
....... Its not so much that its terrible design, as it is completely underwhelming,,,,,,,,,,,,,

DTAH should exit the landscape architecture business, I'm being nice when I say its not their strong suit............(holds for a moment......do they have a strong suit.........? I'm digressing)
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Part of it may also be that there is already an outdoor pool 250 metres north of there in Stanley Park.. Especially on the north part of Ordinance Triangle Park. Why put two outdoor pools literally across the street from each other?

The Cormier idea was great on paper, but functionally that area is already served by an outdoor pool literally a block to the north. It makes sense to me that Parks and Recreation focused their limited capital dollars elsewhere.

I'm not a huge fan of outdoor pools in general as amenities - their operational windows are very limited for their cost. They are very much so a "nice to have" in my eyes.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Part of it may also be that there is already an outdoor pool 250 metres north of there in Stanley Park.. Especially on the north part of Ordinance Triangle Park. Why put two outdoor pools literally across the street from each other?
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No...... as I posted, the intent was for Ordanance to replace the over sized bathtub in Stanley Park South.

There were never going to be two pools that close. Stanley Park is an end-of-life, substandard facility, and there is no room in the existing park to replace it with a more appropriately sized contemporary facility (unless you removed the tennis courts, even then it would be tight)
 
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