Central Waterfront : In The News

Toronto's ongoing waterfront revitalization has caught the attention of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, pointing out that Pittsburgh has made similar strides in highlighting its own waterfront. The key difference, as one might imagine, is in the Toronto development's massive $1.5 billion scale.


As writer Christine H. O'Toole puts it:
 
Read the rest here.
Source: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

UK flight site PrivateFly’s 2015 Airport Poll included Toronto's Billy Bishop airport among its ranking of the "Top 10 Most Stunning Airport Approaches." 

Of the 147 different global airports that received nominations this year, the downtown Toronto airport was ranked seventh in the world.  

Included among the voters' comments were:

"The gleaming city skyline to your north, the vast blue sweep of the great Lake Ontario to the south, and lush green parkland of the island mixed with the boats in the harbor directly below you make this airport's approach truly majestic."

And:

"Arrival into this airport brings you between the skyscrapers of an international city and lush Canadian Parkland. Both framed by the Great Lakes in a fantastic juxtaposition between earth and human creation. Stunning!"


Read the rest here. 
Source: PrivateFly.

Chefs de Mission from 27 National Paralympic Committees were in Toronto last week for a final meeting in anticipation of August's Parapan Am Games. As the event's Chief Executive Officer of TO2015, Saäd Rafi, told the German-based International Paralympic Committee, the games are poised to "leave a legacy in the Americas." 

The Toronto-hosted Games are set to be history-making, thanks to a few key additions. Among these: a National Paralympic Committee support grant developed to help cover travel costs to and from the Games, and a Parapan American Development Programme to build capacity in sport management, coaching, and developing the capacity of physically and visually impaired  athletes. 

“We continue to be impressed by the preparations for the TORONTO 2015 Parapan Am Games and the efforts by Canada to create a real legacy from these Games that benefits the entire region of the Americas,” said American Paralympic Committee President Jose Luis Campo.

Among the 15 sports included in the Games will be archery, judo, powerlifiting, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby and sitting volleyball.


Source: International Paralympic Committee

Travel guide gurus Lonely Planet have anointed Toronto among the world's Top 10 Cities to visit in 2015.

"Two North American metropolises on the well-beaten path bracket Lonely Planet's Top 10 Cities list for 2015, one of an annual variety of best-of and trend-spotting rankings announced this week by the travel publisher, which also compiled them into the Best in 2015 book and travel planner," reports the San Francisco Gate.
 

The Fairmont Royal York Hotel has a new set of owners.

This week, InVest and KingSett Real Estate Growth LP partnered to buy an 80 percent share of the iconic downtown hotel for C$186.5million, leaving the remaining 20 percent to be held by current owners Ivanhoe Cambridge Inc. The news comes amidst a massive renovation initiative expected to be completed by the end of January 2015.

Bloomberg reports that the hotel was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1929 across from Toronto's Union Station with the intent of becoming the largest hotel in the British Commonwealth.

In a statement published by Market Business News, Managing Director of InnVest, Ed Pitoniak, said:

"We are delighted to partner with KingSett and Ivanhoé Cambridge on what we believe is one of Canada's most prestigious hotel properties. We are also looking forward to extending our relationship with Fairmont.With the nearing completion of the Union Station enhancements, as well as the introduction of the Pearson Airport Rail Link, theFairmont Royal York's location places it at the commercial,cultural and transportation crossroads of Toronto."

Read the whole story here.

Source: Bloomberg.  

 

It turns out that a post-apocalyptic Toronto might just be a beautiful thing to behold. At least, it would be through the eyes of sci-fi author Jim Munroe.

The writer has teamed up with artists Matthew Borrett, Terry Lau and Sanford Kong to create images of a gorgeously grim future Toronto, which will be featured in a calendar given out to contributors to Munroe's latest crowdfunded story series. The resulting vignettes are both haunting and surreal: A collapsed CN Tower puffs black smoke over the Gardiner Expressway in one, while vinelike spider legs wind around downtown cityscapes in others.

io9 reports:

"Those of you familiar with Munroe's work may recognize a lot of these scenes from his last film, Ghostswith Shit Jobs,which features a segment about what happens to Toronto after the cityis invaded by giant spiders and its local internet cloud goes into foreclosure."

Giant spiders might be less-than-ideal, but even as an imagined dystopia, Toronto manages to look world-class. 

Read the full story here. 
Source: io9.
 

In one year, Toronto and the surrounding region will become home to the 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games and to celebrate the Canadian Paralympic Committee has released a moving video showing three Canadian medal hopefuls practicing for the games.

Featuring 17-year-old swimmer Danielle Kisser, bronze medal winner of the 100 metres breaststoke at the 2011 Games; cyclist Jaye Milley; and wheelchair basketball player David Eng, who was part of the gold medal team at the 2012 London Paralympics; the video harnesses the power of training, hope and passion and turns it into fuel for the forthcoming games. 

Entitled, “Are You Ready?”, the slickly edited video focuses on Parapan athletes as the Toronto Games will feature qualification positions for the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio. 

"I am hugely confident that Toronto will deliver the best ever Parapan American Games in one year's time," Americas Paralympic Committee (APC) President Jose Luis Campo is quoted as saying. 

"Two years ago, I witnessed how successful the London 2012 Paralympic Games were in Great Britain,” he continues. “I really believe that the Parapan American Games can have a similar impact in Canada in terms of raising the profile of Para-sport and changing perceptions of people with an impairment."

The Pan Am and Parapan Am Games will kick off on August 7, 2015 and will feature 1,600 atheletes from 28 countries and territories. 

Watch the video below.



Read the full story here. 
Original Source: Inside the Games

The Daily Commercial News and Construction Record reports that Toronto's Sugar Beach has won yet another design award, "the sixth major design accolade that the park has won since opening in July 2010."
 
This time it's an honour award from the American Society of Landscape Architects, recognizing the efforts of Claude Cormier + Associés, Inc.
 
"The sugar factory creates a surreal industrial backdrop, where gantry cranes offload mountains of sandy raw sugar from giant tankers moored in the slip," writes the ASLA on its awards page. "With the fragrance of sugar in the air, the park's conceptual reference is experienced in both sight and smell. Sugar as concept was used to establish a language for many of the elements throughout the park, from the red and white bedrock candy stripes on the park's two outcroppings, the soft confection-like pink of the umbrellas, and even the candy cane pattern on the stainless steel ventilation pipes for the fountain mechanical room buried under the promenade."
 
"Canada's Sugar Beach was created to have a strong identity to draw visitors ultimately for an experience of the park's unique setting of lake and city. It is a space that unites opposites, without conflating them, to allow for an experience of both nature and culture, work and play, production and consumption — a microcosm of the urban phenomenon where participation relies on which direction you position your chaise and fix your gaze."
 
Other winners include Lafayette Greens: Urban Agriculture, Urban Fabric, Urban Sustainability in Detroit; Quarry Garden in Shanghai Botanical Garden, Songjiant District, Shanghai, China; Arizona State University Polytechnic Campus – New Academic Complex, Mesa, Arizona; 200 5th Avenue, New York; Powell Street Promenade, San Francisco; Tudela-Culip (Club Med) Restoration Project in 'Cap de Creus' Cape, Cadaqués, Catalonia, Spain; Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center, Orange, Texas; Winnipeg Skating Shelters, Winnipeg, Manitoba; National 9/11 Memorial, New York; and Sunnylands Center and Gardens, Rancho Mirage, California.
 
Toronto's Yorkville snagged The Landmark Award.
 
"While small in size, Yorkville's park has played an important role in the revitalization of the neighborhood since its completion in 1994. The neighbourhood has continued its redevelopment with several new high-rise buildings rising along the edge or near the park. Recently, the park underwent some restoration work, but its original design integrity as a distillation of regional ecology, along with its role as a neighborhood connection point, remain as strong as ever. The park is owned and maintained by the City of Toronto Department of Parks, Forestry and Recreation. The Bloor-Yorkville Business Improvement Area takes an active role in the management and programming of the park."
 
Read the full stories here and here
Original source: The Daily Commercial News and Construction Record

Progress reinvigorating Toronto's waterfront hasn't been fast, but Susan Griffith, a writer for the UK's Independent newspaper, seems impressed by what's taking shape.
 
"Over the past 20 years, the city fathers have been imaginatively transforming the concrete piers, abandoned silos and crumbling warehouses of the industrial waterfront into welcoming public spaces."
 
Offering a tour starting at the Toronto Music Garden, Griffith suggests heading east.
 
"Within 10 or 15 minutes the sign for the unlovely Redpath Sugar Refinery will come into view, hiding an unexpected urban treat. This is the third summer that a load of sand has transformed a carpark into Canada's Sugar Beach, featuring 150 white slatted Muskoka chairs under pink umbrellas, where Torontonians come to picnic and sunbathe. Swimming is not permitted but you can cool off in the fountains that shoot out of the pavement."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: The Independent
 

The New York Times reports on the downtown condo boom and Toronto's insatiable appetite for urban living.
 
"In the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, almost 900 condominium units were sold downtown, 25 percent of the approximately 3,600 condo sales citywide."
 
"A city survey released in March, Living in Downtown and the Centres, attributes the popularity of housing in Toronto's core to its proximity to work and transit options, cultural and entertainment sites, and the venues for the city's major league basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer franchises."
 
"'Many people like the convenience of not driving to work. They enjoy being in the center of everything and the downtown has lots of restaurants and shops,' said Oksana Jancevic, a sales representative at Royal LePage Real Estate Services who specializes in downtown properties. She settled here herself after relocating from Lithuania 10 years ago."
 
"The description makes sense considering that more than half of all downtown residents are single and between the ages 20 and 44, according to the new survey. More than 50 percent have at least a university degree and one third have annual household incomes of more than 100,000 Canadian dollars, or $98,000. When it comes to couples, 30 percent are childless."

Read the full story here
 
Original Source: The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal spotlights the Toronto Waterfront redevelopment in a tripartite feature that includes not only an in-depth article on the effort,  but also a slideshow of the many redevelopment projects underway and a video interview with Waterfront Toronto CEO John Campbell.

Declaring the redevelopment of Toronto's shoreline, "one of the world's biggest waterfront revitalization efforts" the Wall Street Journal looks both at projects still in progress (e.g. the West Donlands) and those projects that have been successfully integrated into the fabric of the city (e.g. the Simcoe Wavedeck).

see full feature here (subscription required)
original source Wall Street Journal