Brandon Donnelly
THE DAILY INFILL is a blog for city builders written by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
Brandon Donnelly
THE DAILY INFILL is a blog for city builders written by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
This past weekend was gorgeous in Toronto. I always love seeing the city come to life after the winter and last weekend was the first sign of that this year.
Being the fair-weather cyclist that I am, I had the flat fixed on my single speed bike and I was ready to go by the weekend. I managed to test out the GoPro handlebar mount that I mentioned last week but, quite honestly, the footage was so jittery and bouncy that it made me nauseous to watch it. So I need to rethink my city geek filming strategy.
(Sidebar: GoPro needs to make it easier to turn their raw footage into content that is actually worth sharing.)
Still, I had a good ride over to the new Canary District on the east side of downtown. The gates just recently game down, so I was itching to take a look at it. Here are a couple of photos to give you some context for the rest of this post:
None of the retailers have moved in, so the area currently feels like Toronto post zombie apocalypse (to use a friend’s description of the neighborhood). But all of the bones are in place for an incredible downtown neighborhood.
Here are some of my thoughts as I was riding around:
The opening of this neighborhood repositions the Distillery District. Initially, the Distillery District struggled as a kind of island on the edge of downtown. But thankfully they stuck to their initial vision for the community and now they get the benefit of this new mixed-use anchor to the east of it.
Trinity Street to the north of the Distillery District proper is a fantastic opportunity to not only extend the magic of the Distillery northward, but also “plug” the area into Front Street East, which is the primary east-west spine that connects the Canary District back to the downtown core. I hope we (the city, developers, and so on) take advantage of this.
The Front Street Promenade running through the Canary District and connecting into Corktown Common (park) is going to be an absolutely magical urban space once the restaurants, cafes, and retailers open up. I can’t wait for this to happen. Live Work Learn Play has been orchestrating the retail component.
Finally, why are all of the buildings gray?
Gray brick. Gray window wall. Gray spandrel panel. It’s gray on gray on gray. We’re playing into that boring Canadian stereotype here. I hope the subsequent developments introduce some wild colors. Although some red brick to tie into the Distillery District would work well too. The best nearby architecture (just to the north) is the River City complex by Saucier + Perrotte.
Notwithstanding the gray, I’m super excited about the Canary District and I am generally bullish on the east side of downtown. If you’ve had a chance to visit, I’d love to also hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
I try not to focus on local Toronto issues this much, but this morning an important initiative was announced and it’s blowing up my Twitter feed.
By spring 2017, the city hopes to have a pilot project in place that will transform King Street – running from Liberty Village in the west to the Distillery District in the east – into a priority-transit and pedestrian corridor.
This isn’t to say the street will be closed to cars. I would imagine that at least 1 lane would remain for cars going each way. Instead it will be redesigned to prioritize transit, pedestrians, and cyclists.
So why is this exciting?
The King streetcar is currently broken. If you’ve ever taken it across downtown during rush hour, you know exactly what I mean. It’s infuriating. You might as well be crawling on your hands and knees. One of the goals of this initiative will be to get it working again. Good.
The shoulders of downtown – along King West and King East – are seeing some of the greatest intensification in the region. So much that it’s common for people in this city to complain that Toronto misplanned it all by allowing this development before the transit was there. Well, this is a quick and inexpensive way to get the transit there. Remember that when the inevitable “war on car” rhetoric ratchets up over the next year.
The project will be deployed, first, as a pilot project. That will allow the project team to test and iterate. It has also become the way you get things approved in cities. You first make them temporary.
But I am certain that we will quickly discover how necessary these changes were.
This past weekend was gorgeous in Toronto. I always love seeing the city come to life after the winter and last weekend was the first sign of that this year.
Being the fair-weather cyclist that I am, I had the flat fixed on my single speed bike and I was ready to go by the weekend. I managed to test out the GoPro handlebar mount that I mentioned last week but, quite honestly, the footage was so jittery and bouncy that it made me nauseous to watch it. So I need to rethink my city geek filming strategy.
(Sidebar: GoPro needs to make it easier to turn their raw footage into content that is actually worth sharing.)
Still, I had a good ride over to the new Canary District on the east side of downtown. The gates just recently game down, so I was itching to take a look at it. Here are a couple of photos to give you some context for the rest of this post:
None of the retailers have moved in, so the area currently feels like Toronto post zombie apocalypse (to use a friend’s description of the neighborhood). But all of the bones are in place for an incredible downtown neighborhood.
Here are some of my thoughts as I was riding around:
The opening of this neighborhood repositions the Distillery District. Initially, the Distillery District struggled as a kind of island on the edge of downtown. But thankfully they stuck to their initial vision for the community and now they get the benefit of this new mixed-use anchor to the east of it.
Trinity Street to the north of the Distillery District proper is a fantastic opportunity to not only extend the magic of the Distillery northward, but also “plug” the area into Front Street East, which is the primary east-west spine that connects the Canary District back to the downtown core. I hope we (the city, developers, and so on) take advantage of this.
The Front Street Promenade running through the Canary District and connecting into Corktown Common (park) is going to be an absolutely magical urban space once the restaurants, cafes, and retailers open up. I can’t wait for this to happen. Live Work Learn Play has been orchestrating the retail component.
Finally, why are all of the buildings gray?
Gray brick. Gray window wall. Gray spandrel panel. It’s gray on gray on gray. We’re playing into that boring Canadian stereotype here. I hope the subsequent developments introduce some wild colors. Although some red brick to tie into the Distillery District would work well too. The best nearby architecture (just to the north) is the River City complex by Saucier + Perrotte.
Notwithstanding the gray, I’m super excited about the Canary District and I am generally bullish on the east side of downtown. If you’ve had a chance to visit, I’d love to also hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
I try not to focus on local Toronto issues this much, but this morning an important initiative was announced and it’s blowing up my Twitter feed.
By spring 2017, the city hopes to have a pilot project in place that will transform King Street – running from Liberty Village in the west to the Distillery District in the east – into a priority-transit and pedestrian corridor.
This isn’t to say the street will be closed to cars. I would imagine that at least 1 lane would remain for cars going each way. Instead it will be redesigned to prioritize transit, pedestrians, and cyclists.
So why is this exciting?
The King streetcar is currently broken. If you’ve ever taken it across downtown during rush hour, you know exactly what I mean. It’s infuriating. You might as well be crawling on your hands and knees. One of the goals of this initiative will be to get it working again. Good.
The shoulders of downtown – along King West and King East – are seeing some of the greatest intensification in the region. So much that it’s common for people in this city to complain that Toronto misplanned it all by allowing this development before the transit was there. Well, this is a quick and inexpensive way to get the transit there. Remember that when the inevitable “war on car” rhetoric ratchets up over the next year.
The project will be deployed, first, as a pilot project. That will allow the project team to test and iterate. It has also become the way you get things approved in cities. You first make them temporary.
But I am certain that we will quickly discover how necessary these changes were.
This past Sunday I spent part of the afternoon in Kensington Market (Toronto) for Pedestrian Sundays.
If you’ve never been to a Pedestrian Sunday, you’re missing out. The entire neighborhood – which happens to be a National Historic Site of Canada – gets closed to cars, and filled with street vendors, musicians, bands playing on roofs (see above), and so on. It’s pretty wild. And it feels very Toronto to me.
It happens the last Sunday of the month from May to October. But every time I go I wonder why the area isn’t this way more often or even all the time. It’s a natural candidate. But after 12 seasons of Pedestrian Sundays, it still hasn’t happened. It’s only 6 days throughout the year.
I remember being in a meeting early on in my career when I brought up the idea of a pedestrian mall in Toronto for a project I was working on. And I got completely shut down. I was told they don’t work here in our climate and that we should just forget about it. I was told to look at the failure of Ottawa’s Spark Street Mall.
But I’m still not convinced that’s the case. In fact, I feel even stronger at this point that it could and would work in Toronto. I’ve been to the Distillery District in the dead of winter for the Toronto Christmas Market and I could barely move because of all of the people.
Acknowledging climate is important. But it shouldn’t become an excuse for not doing things.
This past Sunday I spent part of the afternoon in Kensington Market (Toronto) for Pedestrian Sundays.
If you’ve never been to a Pedestrian Sunday, you’re missing out. The entire neighborhood – which happens to be a National Historic Site of Canada – gets closed to cars, and filled with street vendors, musicians, bands playing on roofs (see above), and so on. It’s pretty wild. And it feels very Toronto to me.
It happens the last Sunday of the month from May to October. But every time I go I wonder why the area isn’t this way more often or even all the time. It’s a natural candidate. But after 12 seasons of Pedestrian Sundays, it still hasn’t happened. It’s only 6 days throughout the year.
I remember being in a meeting early on in my career when I brought up the idea of a pedestrian mall in Toronto for a project I was working on. And I got completely shut down. I was told they don’t work here in our climate and that we should just forget about it. I was told to look at the failure of Ottawa’s Spark Street Mall.
But I’m still not convinced that’s the case. In fact, I feel even stronger at this point that it could and would work in Toronto. I’ve been to the Distillery District in the dead of winter for the Toronto Christmas Market and I could barely move because of all of the people.
Acknowledging climate is important. But it shouldn’t become an excuse for not doing things.
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