Toronto Union Station Revitalization | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto | NORR

The demographics of downtown Toronto is different, from the location of the Union station in Washington DC.
- condo booms within walking distance
- density
- office lunch market
- frequent airport express
Toronto Union has all the above in spades, unlike Washington DC Union.

For Toronto Union, it is much higher density within a walking distance radius, so it is far more sustainable in Toronto. The number of residents and office workers within walking distance of Union is skyrocketing (Western Hemisphere's biggest condo boom) as is the overcrowding at lunchtime in nearby business food courts. We downtown office workers (like me) routinely walk the PATH network to an adjacent food court one or two blocks down, and Union is well within distance of several towers. And occasionally, we lament the fact there's not many good dinner places unless we walk in a different direction than Union, for that time we worked late and the people at home already started dinner.

My concern is for the pre-RER timeframe, which is when Union commuters is still growing at a very rapid clip, since we need both that market AND the office/local resident markets, AND the airport traveller market, to make 135,000 square feet of premium a sustained success. I have no doubt it will eventually happen given the stupdendous boom surrounding Union (condos+RER+UPX+etc), in my mind there is no doubt about the "if" part, but the question is really "when?".

Balzac's Coffee, Burger Priest, and the like, are not Chanel, Prada, or Holt Review. Even the middle class can afford a premium meal once in a while. Washington DC's Union had its ups and downs over the years, but it's still a lovely place, and it's remarkable it succeeded at least partially given its low density location.

TL;DR: A Washington DC Union station mall would be even far more successful in dense downtown Toronto than where it currently is in its low-density location in Washington DC.
 
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dowlingm said:
Having somewhere reasonably convenient to the Financial District other than Front St West restaurants to get something to eat on the weekend would be interesting to try out. Wanted to grab dinner when working at King and Bay one Saturday evening last year and it was a long walk before I found something open.
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Most of the financial district food courts close at 6pm anyway on weekdays (BAC definitely does), so a later quick dinner option nearby is a nice option.
 
They ways we use Union Station is changing. Besides the higher number of passengers coming and going—a rise which is just going to continue more steeply over the next decade and more—the area around Union Station is changing too. There are more places to work and more places to live within the encircling blocks. The people living and working right there will need more places to shop and eat as well.

Washington's Union Station is not surrounded by such high density, with the location being somewhat less convenient as a meeting place unless one is actually getting on a train and going somewhere. Our Union Station has PATH connections from the north, south, and west, and will in coming years have one from the east as well. The station will become a major meeting point as well, in the middle of everything.

I also buy into the arguments that with trains in the future heading out of the station every 15 minutes, people aren't going to be as concerned about which train they get on, and there will be more on-the-way-home shopping done here. Even if you don't shop every day, this is a mall that commuters will walk through twice every work day, and if they shop for something in it once per week, that's probably more often than they visit any other particular mall.

I'm not worried about Union succeeding as a retail venue.

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I think people underestimate the impact Union Station will have as a destination once the mall opens. All the successful malls in the region are shopping destinations even on weekends, especially the Eaton Centre which is already very well served by transit. Weekend shoppers arriving by train from the suburbs are going to stop by Union first before heading to Eaton Centre.

I wonder if Union Station will be the catalyst for the PATH becoming more alive outside of office hours and on weekends.
 
I was in the York concourse last night and was sad to see that there's already water damage on the ceiling tiles near the top of the escalators to the future retail level. I hope buckets on the floor and water stains all over the ceiling won't become a regular occurrence...
 
Don't forget Union Station also serves as a link between MINT and Southcore either.

smably said:
I was in the York concourse last night and was sad to see that there's already water damage on the ceiling tiles near the top of the escalators to the future retail level. I hope buckets on the floor and water stains all over the ceiling won't become a regular occurrence...
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With luck the issue should be lessened significantly after the trainshed roof is back in place and the tracks/platforms repaired.

AoD
 
WislaHD said:
I think people underestimate the impact Union Station will have as a destination once the mall opens. All the successful malls in the region are shopping destinations even on weekends, especially the Eaton Centre which is already very well served by transit. Weekend shoppers arriving by train from the suburbs are going to stop by Union first before heading to Eaton Centre.

I wonder if Union Station will be the catalyst for the PATH becoming more alive outside of office hours and on weekends.
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I'f I'm coming into town to go to the Eaton Centre, I'm going to shop at Union last, on my way back home.
 
The proposed retail layout shows some big spaces too.
Anchor tenants that fills the bigger retail space, haven't even been announced yet.

An Apple Store would be big news (precedents do exist for multiple downtown Apple Stores in a city as big as Toronto, multiple Apple Stores only 1 kilometer apart). New York City has 4 Apple Stores within walking distance of each other! Also, in the past, one of them creatively hid a piller with a relocated Genius Bar front (with more storespace behind) -- so it still looked open concept despite a hidden structural pillar going through the Apple store. They are very clever. So it's doable at Union. I place it 1-to-3 odds that one anchor tenant is Apple Store. It's a perfect location for them -- GO commuters are big-time Apple users -- but would have to be located off the main TTC-Bay concourse pathway to prevent product launch lineups from blocking commuters. I take first dibs on the Apple "anchor tenant" bet, at 33% chance.

Regardless, there may be at least one anchor tenant name we'll probably be surprised by.
 
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Not to suggest the Unions are identical, but low density is not what's happening in DC. The intercity coach terminal has already been moved to their Union hub and a substantial commercial zone is a-building north of the station.
By the by, I also heard that the last substantial surface parking lot in the central District is gone...
 
Although I believe an Apple store would not be particularly 'useful' in Union station from a consumer stand point I can definitely see it being the high profile and highly visible location that Apple would likely want.
 
Kraylin said:
Although I believe an Apple store would not be particularly 'useful' in Union station from a consumer stand point I can definitely see it being the high profile and highly visible location that Apple would likely want.
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In the basement of Union Station? Perhaps if they can put one on the southwest corner of Bay and Front ...
 
Kraylin said:
Although I believe an Apple store would not be particularly 'useful' in Union station from a consumer stand point I can definitely see it being the high profile and highly visible location that Apple would likely want.
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I would kind of disagree. If you ride peak GO trains (statistics show average total average household salary of a GO commuter is over $100K) -- you notice many of them are carrying Apple devices. The new Apple Store could quickly become popular, as I would prefer to buy my next iPad at Union than at Eaton if the retail level is attractive (the names I've been hearing sounds like a destination mall). In Canada, the Apple products are historically more popular among middle class and upwards, probably because of higher budget for the expensive Apple stuff...

(Disclaimer: Impartial opinion. Not an Apple zealot. I'm still a BlackBerry and Android phone user, but love the iPad apps I use!)

nfitz said:
In the basement of Union Station? Perhaps if they can put one on the southwest corner of Bay and Front ...
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Try to find my hometown capital city Ottawa's Apple Store. That's a far less visible location than any retail front at Union Station!
(bottom floor in a less-visible obscure part in the middle of Rideau Centre shopping mall -- more OCTranspo users walk on the floor above!).

That invisible Apple Store in Ottawa, Canada is still gangbusters popular, despite less people walking that hallway (Xmas 2014 season) than TTC-to-BayConcourse. If at Union, the front of Union Apple Store would be clearly visible to all the TTC-to-GO PATH walkers, even if perhaps slightly down the east-west hallway instead to be out of the way of the main TTC people traffic flow (to prevent congestion). The proposed retail map shows a few potential large floorspaces that is about the same size as a typical Apple Store, that would have a storefront visible to TTC-to-GO PATH pedestrians, while not being on the north-south route (otherwise, product launches would slow down commuters).
 
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