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West Don Lands

Riverdale Rink Rat said:
1. The finishes are just fine. It's not done on the (super-)cheap at all.

2. It's NOT EVEN OPEN YET. To call it 'uninviting' is ridiculous. You have no idea how it'll interact with its neighbours. However, I will say that the canoe and the lawns below it look like they'll invite tons of loungers. So, IMHO, it'll be inviting. I may be wrong, but you might/probably are wrong, too.

3. No more than 1/3rd of the place is devoted to sports. Probably more like 1/4 if you don't count the Fox running track, which is arguably not only for sports. Besides, as a sporting type, WHAT THE F***'s THE MATTER WITH HAVING SPORTS IN A PARK????

4. Concorde has done a credible job with this park and spent more than they had budgeted/promised, no? For-profit public corporations are supposed to make a profit, not a park, but I think they've done fine.

5. Stay in Hamilton.
Click to expand...

I took a walk through this park recently and I have to say, if it's basically finished at this point, there isn't much to it. I was not very impressed, it just seemed so dull and under developed. I can see this being mainly a park where people go to take their dogs for a crap. Other than the sports playing field, there ain't much there. With no cafes, restaurants or bars surrounding the park, it's not even a place to go for a relaxing coffee or ice cream. Are there even washrooms in this park? I didn't see any. I just hope it doesn't turn into Roundhouse Park 2 or one of those empty parks on the waterfront.
 
Riverdale Rink Rat said:
1. The finishes are just fine. It's not done on the (super-)cheap at all.

2. It's NOT EVEN OPEN YET. To call it 'uninviting' is ridiculous. You have no idea how it'll interact with its neighbours. However, I will say that the canoe and the lawns below it look like they'll invite tons of loungers. So, IMHO, it'll be inviting. I may be wrong, but you might/probably are wrong, too.

3. No more than 1/3rd of the place is devoted to sports. Probably more like 1/4 if you don't count the Fox running track, which is arguably not only for sports. Besides, as a sporting type, WHAT THE F***'s THE MATTER WITH HAVING SPORTS IN A PARK????

4. Concorde has done a credible job with this park and spent more than they had budgeted/promised, no? For-profit public corporations are supposed to make a profit, not a park, but I think they've done fine.

5. Stay in Hamilton.
Click to expand...

5. No.

4. See Below to see what it was supposed to look like, and now tell me they did a 'credible job'. 'Credible' would have been to stick to the detailed plan.

3. There is nothing wrong with a Sports Park. I was pointing to the fact that it resembles a Suburban Sports Park, which is basically built on a grid of four fields. Cheap & Lazy Design --Like most of the Suburbs in general.

2. Though not psychic, I can only assume it will get little-more use than a Dog 'Walking' Park (aka Animal Waste Landfill Park). I have read articles regarding how CityPlace is not very community-oriented at all, despite Management's best efforts by creating Groups & Organizations to get people to interact. All-in-all, these people are here to live, not play/socialize. Also, who can raise a Family is that sized condo!?

1. The Park was built on the cheap, and with little effort. I even heard of Concorde opting for asphalt rather than concrete paths? Rediculous.
Again, how the park SHOULD have looked:

paradepark.jpg

courtesy Casaguy

proj_commons_03_a.jpg


proj_commons_03_c.jpg

both courtesy ProjectEnd

img0210w.jpg


img0211bcm.jpg

both Courtesy AKS

Annnnd What you Got:

img7412.jpg

Courtesy AKS

Where are the layers? Those bridges and underpasses? Where are the other 3/4 of the trees represented in the renders? THAT Park looks gorgeous, what you got looks, well, Suburban.

Lets hope that the Don Park is done with more care and effort; And with the Feds and Dalton on-board (trying to show Toronto off to the World), I can bet Don Park will be done much better than CityCrap Field.
 
I can't believe I'm about to do this, but...

... obviously I'm willing to obsess about details. (I guess we should be moving this argument, but I'm too lazy to obsess about THAT detail, but I digress...)

IMHO, anyone who's bi***ing about the underpass or other bridges/staircases has not been onsite. The main underpass would have cut the main lawn, already small, in half with no benefit. It was a good cut. The myriad paths that would have cut the main lawn up into small squares and would have been way too fussy -- it was a good cut. (If you want to criticize, as I've posted elsewhere, the dusty black gravel paths are going to be a nightmare to maintain. That should have drawn your ire.)

I don't like artificial fields in a park. I understand the maintenance point, but I don't like it -- but, again, it's a good point.

The rest of everyone's whingeing about this park is about the fact they didn't plant 25' trees and mature grasses. Patience, grasshoppers -- the gardens will fill in.

To bring this post back to the thread... I fully expect to read the caterwauling when they don't plant 60' maples on the top of the park/berm/mound which will be Don River Park...
 
Riverdale Rink Rat said:
... To bring this post back to the thread... I fully expect to read the caterwauling when they don't plant 60' maples on the top of the park/berm/mound which will be Don River Park...
Click to expand...

Stay tuned because that will NOT be happening. As it is primarily a flood control structure the Don berm cannot have plants on it if they have deep roots. There is a description of the vegitation planned in the EA study at http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/dbdocs//447e5a85d179a.pdf See page 15 and Section 6.13.
 
Hmmm... guilty as charged...

UserNameToronto said:
C'est What? Betty's? Dominion on Queen?

Certianly not the Mill Street?
Click to expand...

Although I guess I've got to say 'favourite pub in the Distillery District', as you can add PJ O'Brien's, Scotland Yard, Dora Keogh's, Duke of Kent, Mad Monty's, and Original's to your list.

If push came to favourite pub shove, it'd have to be C'est What?, despite their changing the formula of my beloved MBA to its new darker and more evil (but still tasty!) brew... with Dora's a close second.

The good thing about Mill Street is the plethora of pints -- one for every occasion!
 
Torontovibe said:
I took a walk through this park recently and I have to say, if it's basically finished at this point, there isn't much to it. I was not very impressed, it just seemed so dull and under developed. I can see this being mainly a park where people go to take their dogs for a crap. Other than the sports playing field, there ain't much there. With no cafes, restaurants or bars surrounding the park, it's not even a place to go for a relaxing coffee or ice cream.
Click to expand...

I completely agree with the last part. Toronto (and most other North American cities) have this fixation with the idea that an urban park must be some sort of wilderness experience. It's great for big places like High Park, but for a small neighbourhood park, it would be nice to surround it with restaurants and cafes that enliven the place, especially at night.

I enjoy the Old York pub on Niagara.
 
John Bentley Mays fears fear itself

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real...an-am-games-village-has-begun/article1370223/

I must admit that I don't get this one -- or the NatPost version on the same theme last week. So... we could screw this up in 5 years. Or we could screw it up in 25 years, as they're not changing the design/developer formula, just accelerating it. Am I missing something, or is it just a case of 'I need something to complain/worry about'?
 
The only point he makes is simply ... there's no design set in stone yet - we don't know what it's going to be like.

The problem here lies in the fact that it needs to be done and done fast. Hence why corner cutting may occur. If it was a 25 year process there's more time for reviews / panels / what not ...
 
Squeezing the water out of the berm

http://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/newsletter/viewnewsletter.php?id=4b213fad699be&template=5

Neat little comment in the December Waterfront Toronto newsletter about why earthmoving seems to have stopped. Apparently, they've put more dirt on top of the southern mound than will be there in the end -- the weight of the extra dirt is being used to squeeze water out. (There's a little squib on it in the newsletter linked above.)

The implication's interesting -- so, the southern berm is actually now taller than it will be when finished, but the northern berm is not yet fully built up. I had actually thought the opposite -- that the southern park mound had some growing to do, but the northern mound was now built up to River City condo site height. River City, then, is going to be almost level with the current King/River intersection height.
 
Yes, they've been moving the earth around on that berm for months - whenever I pass by in the 504 it seems to have an entirely new profile. I'd assumed it was to allow the earth to "settle" properly under its own weight.
 
800px-King_Street_Bridge.JPG


Does anyone know anything about the abandoned bridges that are just east of this area? There is a bit of confusion over at Wikipedia . There is a short article on the bridge, but even the name of the page is probably wrong as it doesn't seem like King St ever cut through this area. The article is also missing the most basic facts. When were they built? When and why were they abandoned? What are the plans for them in the new development?
 
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