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Superstar
Gee.... I cant believe i have wasted my time reading posts from a bunch of anti-capitalism crybabies worrying about the brand name of their future Toronto aquarium.
Toronto Ripley's Aquarium of Canada | 13.11m | 2s | Ripley Entertainment | B+H
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CodeMonkey
Active Member
Gee.... I cant believe i have wasted my time reading posts from a bunch of anti-capitalism crybabies worrying about the brand name of their future Toronto aquarium.
For me I don't think the Ripley brand goes well with a general aquarium. Then again they do have a Ripley Aquarium in Myrtle Beach.
Sir Novelty Fashion
Senior Member
I can't believe I just read a post that contained the words 'anti-capitalism crybabies.'
I can understand why people might have reservations about a brand whole identity revolves around freaks and geeks. Especially when it's applied to the idea of an aquarium, which conjures up images of MarineLand-style parks that keep probably-sentient mammals in appalling conditions, while making them do appalling things.
But then, it's at the foot of the CN Tower. That land is zoned for maximum tackiness. If we can't intensify tacky tourist dreck there, can we intensify it anywhere?
I can understand why people might have reservations about a brand whole identity revolves around freaks and geeks. Especially when it's applied to the idea of an aquarium, which conjures up images of MarineLand-style parks that keep probably-sentient mammals in appalling conditions, while making them do appalling things.
But then, it's at the foot of the CN Tower. That land is zoned for maximum tackiness. If we can't intensify tacky tourist dreck there, can we intensify it anywhere?
tzv
New Member
Maybe Exhibition Place, but Ontario Place is too separated from Transit and any other attraction. During the summer it might draw well, but during the winter it would be the only thing open: I highly doubt anyone would walk from the Exhibition Station to Ontario Place in the winter to see tropical fish.
Regardless, its proposed for the CN Tower site, the Exhibition options have been explored and withdrawn
Automation Gallery
Superstar
old boy
Senior Member
Come on.....a convention centre, the Alstream centre, a future hotel, a potential aquarium site, whats wrong with the city investing in a new transit line for this area of the lakefront.
Yes, let's talk about the potential, and right smack on the waterfront to boot. Why not break the mold and do something spectacular, you know the " build it and they will come " thing. Maybe John Tory, now that he 's turned his back on the political muck, can think big enough thoughts to make his great passion, Toronto, even better. Go for the gold.
bAuHaUs
Active Member
Has anyone see (if so please post) renderings, or site plan approval submissions showing the different phases of the development.
yyzhyd
Active Member
They were posted back on page 10 or so... but here you go http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2...file-25894.pdf
bAuHaUs
Active Member
Thanks, but this document isn't available on-line...I'll poke around this thread.
spaced
Active Member
From The Star this morning:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/art...-counting-on-sharks-to-snag-aquarium-visitors
Ripley's counting on sharks to snag aquarium visitors
January 08, 2010
Jesse McLean
Imagine looking up from the bottom of the CN Tower and seeing the belly of a shark.
Maybe a giant sea turtle, too.
The shark tunnel, the top-drawing exhibit at Ripley's aquariums in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Gatlinburg, Tenn., will probably be a major part of the proposed aquarium at the base of the CN Tower, Ripley employees say.
"I guarantee it will have a shark tunnel. And I guarantee it will be bigger than ours," said Karl Thomas, director of marketing at Gatlinburg's Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. The Shark Lagoon there consists of a 100-metre moving sidewalk – almost the length of a Canadian football field – surrounded by the glass of a 2.6-million-litre tank.
The tank itself is a diverse borough of marine life, with everything from grunts and sawfish to stingrays and sharks. Big sharks.
The Myrtle Beach aquarium, built in 1997, is about 87,000 square feet, said director Jessica Mula. The Gatlinburg facility is about 125,000 square feet. The one proposed for Toronto will encompass up to 150,000 square feet.
"(Ripley's) likes to go bigger and bigger, each one," Mula said.
The facility will still be a minnow compared with some of the continent's major aquariums.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium, in a small oceanfront town in California, is 322,000 square feet. Chicago's leviathan on Lake Michigan, the Shedd Aquarium, is 422,000 square feet. Unlike Ripley's, these are non-profits that rely on public funding and donations as well as admission fees, with a focus on conservation education and research.
City politicians will begin reviewing the Ripley's project next week. If passed, the aquarium would open in two phases, and developers hope the first section will be unveiled in three years.
A Ripley's spokesperson said it's too early to say what species will be featured. One possible exhibit, making the rounds at the other two facilities, features some of the sea's most lethal creatures. Visitors can meet a palm-sized octopus that packs enough poison to kill 26 humans, or a snail that devours fish.
Visitors often think there might be a gimmick with the aquariums, based on their Believe It or Not! namesake, Mula said. "We've had people ask how we control the stingrays or when we replace the sharks' batteries."
But like most aquariums, Ripley's says its facility will have educational and conservation components, though with a big emphasis on entertainment. The two Ripley's aquariums each draw more than a million tourists a year.
The new aquarium would be the city's first major new attraction since the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993, and could draw new visitors to the CN Tower, which still attracts some 2 million tourists a year.
"You can't really expect to keep your tourism steady if you become static," said Gordon McIvor, vice-president of Canada Lands Company, the federal agency that owns the tower and vacant land at its base.
"The fact that the largest city in Canada doesn't have an aquarium yet is just bizarre."
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/art...-counting-on-sharks-to-snag-aquarium-visitors
Ripley's counting on sharks to snag aquarium visitors
January 08, 2010
Jesse McLean
Imagine looking up from the bottom of the CN Tower and seeing the belly of a shark.
Maybe a giant sea turtle, too.
The shark tunnel, the top-drawing exhibit at Ripley's aquariums in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Gatlinburg, Tenn., will probably be a major part of the proposed aquarium at the base of the CN Tower, Ripley employees say.
"I guarantee it will have a shark tunnel. And I guarantee it will be bigger than ours," said Karl Thomas, director of marketing at Gatlinburg's Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. The Shark Lagoon there consists of a 100-metre moving sidewalk – almost the length of a Canadian football field – surrounded by the glass of a 2.6-million-litre tank.
The tank itself is a diverse borough of marine life, with everything from grunts and sawfish to stingrays and sharks. Big sharks.
The Myrtle Beach aquarium, built in 1997, is about 87,000 square feet, said director Jessica Mula. The Gatlinburg facility is about 125,000 square feet. The one proposed for Toronto will encompass up to 150,000 square feet.
"(Ripley's) likes to go bigger and bigger, each one," Mula said.
The facility will still be a minnow compared with some of the continent's major aquariums.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium, in a small oceanfront town in California, is 322,000 square feet. Chicago's leviathan on Lake Michigan, the Shedd Aquarium, is 422,000 square feet. Unlike Ripley's, these are non-profits that rely on public funding and donations as well as admission fees, with a focus on conservation education and research.
City politicians will begin reviewing the Ripley's project next week. If passed, the aquarium would open in two phases, and developers hope the first section will be unveiled in three years.
A Ripley's spokesperson said it's too early to say what species will be featured. One possible exhibit, making the rounds at the other two facilities, features some of the sea's most lethal creatures. Visitors can meet a palm-sized octopus that packs enough poison to kill 26 humans, or a snail that devours fish.
Visitors often think there might be a gimmick with the aquariums, based on their Believe It or Not! namesake, Mula said. "We've had people ask how we control the stingrays or when we replace the sharks' batteries."
But like most aquariums, Ripley's says its facility will have educational and conservation components, though with a big emphasis on entertainment. The two Ripley's aquariums each draw more than a million tourists a year.
The new aquarium would be the city's first major new attraction since the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1993, and could draw new visitors to the CN Tower, which still attracts some 2 million tourists a year.
"You can't really expect to keep your tourism steady if you become static," said Gordon McIvor, vice-president of Canada Lands Company, the federal agency that owns the tower and vacant land at its base.
"The fact that the largest city in Canada doesn't have an aquarium yet is just bizarre."
Sir Novelty Fashion
Senior Member
Lest we lose sight of what's really important, the #1 travesty in that neighborhood is the lack of rail connection between the rail museum and the mainline that's JUST ACROSS THE ROAD.
Any development in this misbegotten tourist district should keep that in mind (not that it will).
Any development in this misbegotten tourist district should keep that in mind (not that it will).
CN Tower
Banned
LMAO brother! True true!
Personally I find the whole aquarium concept to be cruel to the marine wildlife. It feels like an antiquated concept today. Dolphins definitely don't belong in captivity.
Dugmor
Banned
Maybe we can have a human aquarium instead. I'm sure the cast of KinK wouldn't mind being held in captivity.
casaguy
Senior Member
I'm scratching my head at this project. We need an aquarium? Really?
I can't even fake an interest. (And this from a guy who couldn't have been more proud of his 90 gallon fish tank years ago).
I can't even fake an interest. (And this from a guy who couldn't have been more proud of his 90 gallon fish tank years ago).
Filip
Senior Member
I went to the one in Lisbon and let me tell you they're extremely interesting.
There's just something about the sea, and how creatures there are graceful, dangerous, somewhat unknown that honestly appeals to me. It all comes down to the execution of the aquarium of course (and the Oceanarium in Lisbon is very famous) but maybe Ripley's will be able to pull it off...