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

Where the temporary Timmy's is located is the York Street Promenade. The RailRoad Coffee is in the York Concourse. I that helps.

Aha. The Concourse ends roughly under track 3, the Promenade is north of that.

BTW: Anybody see the pooling water at the top of the new outdoor stairwell at Bay and Front? It was not draining, though the rain had tapered off some time ago. Hope it was only a Patricia-related anomaly.
 

@AlvinofDiaspar Nice pull. I like the heritage details/design destined for the Front Promenade. Below I have bulled out the interesting bits from the PDF you linked.

Heritage design. (I quote: replica cast iron storefronts. We will see as to what quality "replica" stands for.)
heritageDetails.png

Great Hall leasing plan.
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York Promenade leasing plan.
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West Wing leasing plan.
plan_westWing.png

Market leasing plan. (Under VIA.)
plan_market.png

Food Court leasing plan. (Under GO York Concourse.)
plan_foodCourt.png
 

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Agreed. But then again, it's the City of Toronto and the process probably goes something like the following:

A Union project manager informs CoT infrastructure manager that demolition is progressing, infrastructure manager informs his department manager, department manager raises line item at council. Several weeks pass. The line item is notice by a marketing person, who asks the councillor for that ward. The councillor puts the media person in touch with the infrastructure department manager and also informs the social media department. At this point a RFP is released for a photographer if one is not already on staff for the Union project. After the photographer's bids come back and the winner is chose a contract is prepared with the legal department. Once the contract is complete, the photographer can finally come on scene. But not before they complete the CoT two week mandatory construction-site-access-safety-course. Once that is complete, they go on-site and take pictures for a day. The photographer then goes back and uploads their pictures to the CoT, most likely the councillor who issues the contract. The photographs are then passed on to the CoT social media and marketing teams. The marketing people will hold numerous meetings to decide what 10 pictures to actually release to the public. Then these 10 will be sent to the councillor for approval. Once the councillor's changes and comments are accounted for the 10 final photographs are sent to the CoT social media teams for upload to Facebook.

Then again maybe it's just one CoT project manager on-site with direct access to Facebook from his/her iPhone... who knows...
 
Nice to see that the photo update - a little concerned about the pace (like this is more than T+2 months after closure). AoD

Also I would just like to point out that despite being posted to Facebook very recently, these pictures are very outdated. Demolition is much further along than depicted.
 
Yes, the Facebook post says the photos were taken "shortly after it was closed August 2015."
 
My bad. I hadn't noticed their transparency. Kudos. -- In total honesty I do not Facebook well, it is the one site I loyally boycott.
 
Some pictures today:

Firstly, is this the Starbucks-to-be everybody is referring to in the NW corner of the York Concourse beside the current temporary Railroad coffee stand? Looks nice and big, located nicely right next to the teamway exit. Haven't noticed it before, somehow:

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Exterior shot of the new Bicycle Station just north of the York East Teamway, looks like just north of the station itself there will be a few entrances into the station directly:

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The new stairwell from the Great Hall down towards the York Concourse/Via Arrivals area (the promenade, I think? It's getting hard to keep track of the dozens of concourses, teamways, promenades, and moats...), this is facing West, just North of the escalator/elevator up from the York Concourse Hall. Sorry if similar pictures have already been posted, I think I recall recent discussion of this being put in but not pictures; following is a shot of where it lets out (yikes, those old GO benches look *awful*):

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And now these are some interesting ones that I'm quite certain I've neither seen nor heard of before--these doors are located more or less straight ahead of where the above staircase lets out downstairs; seems like these will lead to the centre moat and be the main point of access between the TTC and the York Concourse once the moat opens:

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And finally, a shot of the moat, looking West, taken over the hoarding by the new temporary accessibility ramp from the TTC station to the Bay North Detour/Diversion entrance:

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Between that shot and those new doors by the new stairwell, it certainly looks like the moat is pretty much set to open...however, as others have said, all of that work on the new temporary accessibility ramp very much seems to imply the moat will remain closed for a good while longer, given that the ramp blocks the entire thing very thoroughly. Looks good, at any rate.
 

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Maybe I've missed it somewhere. Is Railroad Coffee Co just temporary until the rest of the retail open?

Really taken a liking to the sweet potato Joe Chips. Would love to still have them there to grab before catching my train.
 
Maybe I've missed it somewhere. Is Railroad Coffee Co just temporary until the rest of the retail open?

The main one at the centre of the south end of the concourse (just north of the ticket counters) is definitely temporary because it is located directly in front of the escalators/stairs to the lower retail level. Not sure if it'll close as soon as the other proper retailers open or once the lower level is ready to open, or if those are even similar or different dates at this point, but definitely not permanent. The other one at the north end beside starbucks certainly looks incredibly temporary, there's not much to it at all--come to think of it I don't think I've ever actually seen it open, only the main one at the south end. Between looking very rickety, existing in a little corner by a wall, and being next to a fairly large starbucks once it opens, I also expect it won't be permanent.

Never heard of railroad before so I'm not sure if they were contracted just temporarily to operate these kiosks or if they're one of the future concourse or retail level tenants proper who just came forward with a plan to provide this temporarily. People are certainly likely to be grateful to them for providing something in the station while everything else is closed, so I could certainly see them building up a bit of customer loyalty among commuters--it would certainly be smart of them to open a proper, permanent location somewhere in the station if they can.
 
Some pictures today:

[...]

And now these are some interesting ones that I'm quite certain I've neither seen nor heard of before--these doors are located more or less straight ahead of where the above staircase lets out downstairs; seems like these will lead to the centre moat and be the main point of access between the TTC and the York Concourse once the moat opens:

View attachment 58326View attachment 58328

Between that shot and those new doors by the new stairwell, it certainly looks like the moat is pretty much set to open...however, as others have said, all of that work on the new temporary accessibility ramp very much seems to imply the moat will remain closed for a good while longer, given that the ramp blocks the entire thing very thoroughly. Looks good, at any rate.

Okay, so the heritage doors at the "East York Vestibule" are finally complete. I totally agree with your analysis then. So why is the moat not open yet? Why install the accessibility ramp? Why keep Bay open at all at this point?

Big changes are definitely coming soon.
 
Okay, so the heritage doors at the "East York Vestibule" are finally complete. I totally agree with your analysis then. So why is the moat not open yet? Why install the accessibility ramp? Why keep Bay open at all at this point?

Big changes are definitely coming soon.

Preaching to the choir. It's MADDENING that they closed Bay without opening the moat. Every day that goes by is unnecessary. When I saw that bloody ramp my jaw dropped...it would be much easier to just tear down the hoarding.

Bay definitely needs to be open as long as the moat is closed--even that small portion is critical for passenger flow to York--but again, since the moat really ought to be able to open, it would seem to make much more sense to just open that so that they can fully close bay and give the contractors full access to do their work without having that section kept in use.

Their logic, if any, is certainly escaping me regarding Bay being kept open and the moat closed...
 
A second RailRoad coffee location has opened in the north west quadrant of the York Concourse, adjacent to an exit to the York Teamway.

@AlvinofDiaspar Nice pull. I like the heritage details/design destined for the Front Promenade. Below I have bulled out the interesting bits from the PDF you linked.

Heritage design. (I quote: replica cast iron storefronts. We will see as to what quality "replica" stands for.)
View attachment 58117

Those remind me of the store fronts in the concourse of Commerce Court North.
 

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