Toronto St Regis Toronto Hotel and Residences | 281.93m | 58s | JFC Capital | Zeidler

Re: TrumpToronto

I'll never get over Zeidler's blatant ripoff of his own design. At least it should give some idea of what the shortened building will look like.

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^ not too fond of that one. The one saving grace is that, if built, this project won't be as prominent on the skyline now.
 
Re: Trump

I'm lovin' it.

Not only was the Eb Zeidler design unattractive, it was out of date with the current architectural zeitgeist both inside and out. Compared to other high-rise offerings like the L tower, KPF's Ritz, and Absolute World it looks tawdry and amateurish.

When TTT's current design was first unveiled, our forum was orange and white and in its infancy. At that time (2002), TTT's design was probably on par with the rest of the condo towers being sold in the city. The bar has really been raised since then. We can use the stillborn Trump tower as a yardstick of just how much more design conscious Toronto has become in the last five years.
 
Re: guaranteed to add 20 more stories or your money back!

That and even when the building was thought to look amazing in the rendering, the finished product turned out to be hidious (Im thinking 1 King West, Apex, Optima, Pantages to name a few). Now the designs are far superior and even the finished product is turning out for the most part to be of higher quality than in the past (Spire, Met,18 Yorkville).

Hopefully they just lose the whole project and put something nicer here (although that is unlikely to happen now).
 
Re: TrumpToronto

I think what we're seeing is some of our best local architects, working in a vernacular familiar to Torontonians, reclaiming the realm of multi-unit housing rather than treating the whole field as a creative dead-zone and leaving it to developers/builders/marketers to run as best they can. In other words, returning to the idea that good design can improve peoples' lives, with architects taking seriously their responsibility to achieve that.
 
Re: TrumpToronto

For every good project, there are plenty of crappy ones. I am not sure that the ratio between good and bad is changing much. For every Met there is a ROCP.
 
I'm not sure either, alklay, but the more priority we give to design literacy in schools, and the more the city mandates good design in building projects, and the more we see architects reclaiming areas such as condo design that have previously been ruled by "style" marketing, the more likely we are to create a design culture that demands the best. I think we fight on several fronts.
 
Re: Trump

Agreed. I also think (North American) society is simply becoming more 'design' oriented and whether its an ipod or a condo, people are demanding more than just standard issue. And this is a good thing.
 
A few more facts...

Hey! Sorry for disappearing for a bit. Had a spring break with my kids in there...

Yes. The building is now planned to be 57-storeys. There are still a few design details to finalize, but that's where we are currently at.

There were a number of reasons why it came to this, the most important being related to financing, construction start and an expected completion date window that must be met for purchasers. The bottom line is, with the financing agreement in place, the building starts construction and everyone wins. Without it... it's just a parking lot for a while longer.

In regards to deposits being held for 5-6 years? Umm, no. Sales started in Sept 2004. Not prior. We've sold over $250 million to date. Not exactly something to sneeze at. And sales are ongoing... and have had a little bump thanks to the financing announcement.

As it stands right now, the building will be about 919 ft / 280.1 m. So, it will be a little bit shorter, about 145 ft (vs. the 70-storey tower). If I recall, the 68-storey version was 1,017 ft. So, we're losing about 100-ft from the original 68-storey version of the tower. Which I believe is still taller than the original 60/65-storey Ritz version of the tower.

Regarding number of units. We're really not losing much per se, as we added a few units per floor when we redesigned the building to be 70-stories. Essentially, we will have about the same # of suites when the project was originally 68-stories.

Floors: 68 / 70 / 57

Hotel suites 265 / 291 / 261
Resid suites 109 / 147 / 118
Total suites 374 / 438 / 379

It's not as bad as it all sounds here. Do we wish we were building 70-stories. Of course. But bottom-line, we are thrilled that the building is moving forward with construction and look forward to seeing many of you there at the groundbreaking later this year.
 
Re: TrumpToronto

So is that 919 ft to the top of the spire? And I guess the design won't change at all then, we'll just get a slightly condensed version of the same thing. I have to agree with others that by losing the 150+ feet of height, this building won't look as great in the cluster. Sure, it'll add a lot of density, but it would have been nice to have a tower stick out a little more from our main cluster...Here's hoping that we will one day see a building crack the 300m/1000ft mark in T.O...

All i know is that its still great to be a Torontonian...:hat
 
Re: TrumpToronto

TrumpToronto, as always, wins the congeniality award. (That looks snarky, but it's not.)
 
Re: Trump

We dont deserve to have this project go through either in its current form which lost the only good thing about it (its height). Thankfully we got Four Seasons, Shangri-la, and Ritz with nice designs.
 
Re: A few more facts...

Perhaps Eric Idle will cast trumptoronto in the final Always look on the bright side of Life chorus when Not The Messiah ( He's A Very Naughty Boy ) premieres at Luminato?
 
Re: TrumpToronto

I wonder if this shrinkage will change the massing of the building. I am fearing the North York "squat effect" happening to the structure.
 
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