Toronto Waterlink at Pier 27 | 43.89m | 14s | Cityzen | a—A

Good to see the city getting a bigger piece at the foot of Yonge Street. And the more we can do to hide the Toronto Star building the better.
 
interchange42 said:
MetroMan,

In fact the answer to your question is YES, the city and the developers did work out an exchange of land. If you compare the drawings below, I believe that the City now owns all of the areas that are labeled Public Promenade along both the harbour and the slip, and that in return the developers now have the portion of the area labeled WATERFRONToronto Land that lies immediately behind the first phase building. The City's strip of land is now 46 metres wide running down to the harbour from Queens Quay, and the boardwalk running east as far as the Redpath property will be 25 metres wide. The public will also have access to the lake through the middle of the site down the Freeland Street extension. You can see other tweaks to the site plan, including both the road layout and orientation of some of the original phase buildings, in the new plan below.

OLD

OldPier27Property.jpg



NEW

Pier27Situation.jpg



42
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Thanks for finding that original site plan for comparison.

It's glad to see the city fighting to retain this corridor. The resulting space is sufficient for a future landmark at the foot of Yonge. Perhaps a pier jutting out into the harbour with a Zeidler/Foster like tear drop tower at the tip that can be seen up Yonge from a distance. This would celebrate our longest street beautifully.

The only reservation that I still have with this project is how it will meet the street. Right now, it seems a little like "towers in the park", set back far from the sidewalk with lawns. I understand that this is private property and if I lived here I wouldn't wanting the general public hanging around my building, but I hope they can find a happy medium where the the general public isn't obviously prohibited from certain areas as much as they're guided away from them using clever landscaping.
 
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^^I share your concern that this project isn't going to do much to help the streetscape, nor will it help turn Queen's Quay into one of the world's 10 greatest streets (or whatever bold promise Waterfront Toronto is making).

The architecture could be a great addition but without any street life, QQ will remain a dead zone.
 
CityPlaceN1 said:
Good to see the city getting a bigger piece at the foot of Yonge Street. And the more we can do to hide the Toronto Star building the better.
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1 Yonge is directly north of that vacant land. Unless the land is developed with a tall tower, the view of 1 Yonge will forever be showcased from the lake.
 
I don't know, people. It's too much of one thing in a project. It's not an interesting building anymore, it's the Poorly Stacked Floors District now. More practically, design monotony creates exclusivity. It shouts, ALL THESE BUILDINGS BELONG TOGETHER HERE, AND YOU DO NOT. Venturing between them means entering their little world. The more you break up a design, I think, the more public the space between becomes.
 
Its as if the architects could not decide on which design (gimmick? novelty?) to use (stacked boxes, weird and wacky balconies or gradual curve) so they went with all three.
 
alklay said:
Its as if the architects could not decide on which design (gimmick? novelty?) to use (stacked boxes, weird and wacky balconies or gradual curve) so they went with all three.
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well put alklay ... I agree with your observation / comment totally ~
 
alklay said:
Its as if the architects could not decide on which design (gimmick? novelty?) to use (stacked boxes, weird and wacky balconies or gradual curve) so they went with all three.
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While I find this new design interesting, I know exactly what you're saying.

For me the design is less of an issue than the lack of any retail or public establishments.
 
syn said:
While I find this new design interesting, I know exactly what you're saying.

For me the design is less of an issue than the lack of any retail or public establishments.
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Isn't there retail in the part that faces Queens Quay? (I thought there was) If not, that's a really bad thing. All of Queens Quay needs retail, as well as other public amenities and amusements. It's our waterfront, it can't just be for the use of condo owners.
 
It is really astonishing how many crappy developments there have been along Queens Quay. All of them, new or old, have been bad. Every single one of them feel like an island within itself and isolated from each other. And Pier 27 is just like that. So in a way, I guess it fits right in. Queens Quay is an extremely sterile, desolate and unpleasant street, so an equally sterile and unpleasant complex such as this fits right in.
 
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doady said:
It is really astonishing how many crappy developments there have been along Queens Quay. All of them, new or old, have been bad. Every single one of them feel like an island within itself and isolated from each other. And Pier 27 is just like that. So in a way, I guess it fits right in. Queens Quay is an extremely sterile, desolate and unpleasant street, so an equally sterile and unpleasant complex such as this fits right in.
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Queen's Quay West is decent. There are attractive buildings like King's Landing, the Radisson Hotel, the Terminal and Harbourfront Centre, and great parks like H20, the Music Garden and Ireland Park. It's a decent street but it could be a lot better considering its prominent location.
 
... and things are looking up on the east side too, with a future waterfront pedestrian promenade linking the just-getting-under-construction or soon-to-be-finished George Brown, Corus and Sugar Beach, and Sherbourne Commons and this condo development under way. Yaaay! Waterfront!
 
doady said:
It is really astonishing how many crappy developments there have been along Queens Quay. All of them, new or old, have been bad. Every single one of them feel like an island within itself and isolated from each other. And Pier 27 is just like that. So in a way, I guess it fits right in. Queens Quay is an extremely sterile, desolate and unpleasant street, so an equally sterile and unpleasant complex such as this fits right in.
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I think that the West 8 plan will make it a cohesive element, tying Queens Quay together. Once the extra wide sidewalks and the Martin Goodman trail come in, the real estate fronting it will become too valuable to ignore. Where there are private elements facing Queens Quay, an incentive will be there to open up businesses catering to the waterfront strolling crowd. It will sort itself out.
 
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