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This thread is unbelievable. People living in condominiums downtown Toronto should not be allowed to lower them selves to the likes of them suburban commoners who shop at Costco and Wal-Mart?

Please people, I think convinent and affordable everyday shopping is a blessing for any wage earning community. Why is a big box retail chain not good enough for Torobto's downtown?
 
^ Because arvelomcquaig, the self-appointed Komizar of all that's good and just, says so. He knows best. Perhaps the unfulfilled Target concession should be made into a re-education camp for Big Box shoppers, with isolation cells for the most egregious Wal-Mart shoppers. They must see the evil of their ways. They must be made examples of.
 
This thread right now:

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I could be wrong, but isn't it generally accepted that smaller mom and pop style and independent businesses often can't afford the overhead associated with new-build retail spaces in the downtown core? I am not going to argue the whole corporations vs little guy thing, as this isn't the place for it, but even if the large space was broken up into smaller units, could many smaller businesses even handle the cost of being in the heart of it all?
 

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The Walmart debate is growing a little stale so I'll try to change directions a bit. In my opinion, a community needs a good hardware store with at least one owner/manager/staff person who can tell you how to do a job and what tools and materials you need to do it. I have no idea if that kind of store can afford to locate in Southcore.

What else do you think a community needs? Your turn.
 
someMidTowner said:
I could be wrong, but isn't it generally accepted that smaller mom and pop style and independent businesses often can't afford the overhead associated with new-build retail spaces in the downtown core? I am not going to argue the whole corporations vs little guy thing, as this isn't the place for it, but even if the large space was broken up into smaller units, could many smaller businesses even handle the cost of being in the heart of it all?
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Yeah, this post provides a good way of connecting the broader point arvel was making about large corporations with the building that's the topic of this thread. To extend someMidTowner's point here, I think the interesting issue is how the predominance of large corporations at this stage of post-industrial (in the West) capitalism has become pretty deeply continuous with the very way we're building our cities.

It's no surprise that there's a connection between our architecture, our city planning, and our economics. But the question in this specific case is whether we've come to a point where even the deepest core of our urban centers can no longer escape the homogeneity of the corporations that populate our suburbs.

I think it's pretty clear that this is what's going on in this case. And that forces us to rethink our understanding of the urban/suburban divide. Now even the heart of the urban is being built out from its center with the same economic forces that build out our suburbs--well, at least in the case of South Core.
 
Yes, exactly. It’s really disturbing. One of the salient features of downtown Toronto that distinguish it from the suburbs is the prevalence of retail that’s unique and locally owned, as opposed to the same five American-owned chains repeated ad nauseam everywhere you go. This small, independent retail is a wonderful part of old, dense urbanism that we should be perpetuating in new developments, but so often lately the retail is designed to be enormous, which seems to preclude all but the most giant, sterile, and regressive businesses.

I think having maximum widths/sizes for retail would be a wonderful thing, as is done—I hear—in some parts of NYC.

I really hope South Core doesn’t continue to be designed to be a cold, monolithic, vertical quasi-suburb. With some architectural diversity and smaller (and more numerous) retail designs, this could be mitigated.
 
At the end of the day I am not sure about the survival rates of moms and pops stores without any previous customer knowledge in a high end/high-rent, 9 to 5 quasi-office environment with no presence on the street. There are examples elsewhere (e.g. Asia) but I am not sanguine about that model in Toronto. You can break up that space of course, but my fear is that it'd turn into an Aura basement instead.

AoD

PS: avoid personal attacks
 
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arvelomcquaig said:
Yes, exactly. It’s really disturbing. One of the salient features of downtown Toronto that distinguish it from the suburbs is the prevalence of retail that’s unique and locally owned, as opposed to the same five American-owned chains repeated ad nauseam everywhere you go. This small, independent retail is a wonderful part of old, dense urbanism that we should be perpetuating in new developments, but so often lately the retail is designed to be enormous, which seems to preclude all but the most giant, sterile, and regressive businesses.

I think having maximum widths/sizes for retail would be a wonderful thing, as is done—I hear—in some parts of NYC.

I really hope South Core doesn’t continue to be designed to be a cold, monolithic, vertical quasi-suburb. With some architectural diversity and smaller (and more numerous) retail designs, this could be mitigated.
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So you'd rather see this than Walmart or Costco? Mom and pop shops can't afford these types of spaces, so it's going to have to be a big box retailer.

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LNahid2000 said:
So you'd rather see this than Walmart or Costco? Mom and pop shops can't afford these types of spaces, so it's going to have to be a big box retailer.
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I don't mind seeing some of this type of retail (though you've chosen an example that is particularly problematical from an aesthetic perspective - smaller stores need not look like that) - my concern is whether they'd survive.

AoD
 
Parkdalian said:
The Aura example isn't very strong because there is a lot of retail down there now. How well it survives is another matter.
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Last time I was there (which was around a month ago), at least half the stores were still empty. Also, I counted at least 4 nail salons, 3 hair stylists, and 3 convenience stores in there, so the retail isn't very diverse. Most of these retailers also seem to close very early (6pm on weekdays) so it's pretty dead whenever I'm down there.
 
LNahid2000 said:
Last time I was there (which was around a month ago), at least half the stores were still empty. Also, I counted at least 4 nail salons, 3 hair stylists, and 3 convenience stores in there, so the retail isn't very diverse. Most of these retailers also seem to close very early (6pm on weekdays) so it's pretty dead whenever I'm down there.
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Doesn't help that the space is poorly designed and connected to College Park, with a relatively small pool of workers nearby. It would be very hard pressed to convince a landlord to break a space up for small, high risk stores when they can sign up a few big tenants instead.

AoD
 
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