Future Canadian Skylines

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

Have you guys been to the Entertainment District?

It's huge (in area), it's got massive old school streetwalls, and skyscrapers all over the place to boot. It's at least as big as the financial district.

Yes. I'm not saying this to put down Toronto. I was seriously surprised to go to Montreal and have it feel so much closer in the downtown than I expected. I was massively surprised to see that Calgary's boosters weren't kidding and that the downtown felt that crazy massive (also that the mountains looked so close). I was downright confused when I went to Vancouver and basically felt like I was in Toronto.

Maybe the past 9 months have seen a major shift (Toronto is building very quickly, but then again I was in Montreal 7 months ago and they're building a lot too, Calgary and Vancouver are at about 5 months ago and Calgary's building a new tallest).

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Gresto

Blecch, Chicago's Wanda Vista is absolutely ghastly! The other three are nice, especially 451 East Grand.

Ya what a beast. If it was just the tall section it would be fine.

[caltrane74]

Yes, but you saying outside the financial district, Toronto feels like Montreal or Calgary.

That is not the case, because the Entertainment District has towers almost as big or taller than anything in Montreal (Tallest tower is 215/208 meters) , and the area it covers is almost as big as the (Toronto) Financial District.

Don't forget Southcore Financial Centre as well, it takes up a massive amount of land and is getting new towers (tallest is 236 meters) as well.

[flipv]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

Yes, but you saying outside the financial district, Toronto feels like Montreal or Calgary.

That is not the case, because the Entertainment District has towers almost as big or taller than anything in Montreal, and the area it covers is almost as big as the Financial District.

Don't forget Southcore Financial Centre as well, it takes up a massive amount of land and is getting new towers as well.

And Yorkville with a bigger and better skyline than most cities in North America...

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Montreal or Vancouver only feel smaller if you spend all your time staring up (Calgary still stands pretty darned good). Also only if you compare it to a few intersections. A lot of downtown Toronto is only in that 20-40 range, which is where lots of Montreal, Vancouver, or Calgary are. .

I understand what you're saying but you could visit several of Toronto's hubs and they could feel like any number of Canadian cities had been dropped there in whole. Even at that range (20-40 floors) lets say 100m-150m Toronto still dominates.

Data from the diagram page here
Toronto: 166 built
Vancouver: 48 built
Montreal: 39 built
Calgary: 43 built

Toronto: 34 u/c
Vancouver: 2 u/c
Montreal: 8 u/c
Calgary: 8 u/c

Toronto: 64 proposed
Vancouver: 4 proposed
Montreal: 6 proposed
Calgary: 9 proposed

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by flipv

And Yorkville with a bigger and better skyline than most cities in North America...

Exactly..

That's 4 areas (Districts) each equal in size to the Toronto Financial District, with towers ranging from 208-215 meters to 257 meters.

And then there's Yonge-Dundas-Gerrard. The new and up and coming area, again almost as tall as anything in the Financial District and almost as big (tallest 273 meters). There are so many big towers coming here as well, like Karma 165 meters, and YC Condos (195 meters), Teahouse Condos (175 meters) yes this area has lots of lowrise 2 storey retail, but most of it is historic so it will not comedown but the towers are being built behind the historic buildings.

[WhipperSnapper]

The Entertainment District is an area in transition. The warehouse stock creates street walls ranging from 50 to 150 feet. This is about half of what you may find in Chicago.

Chicago's main skyline cluster consists of about 1000 high rises. I don't think Toronto has reached that yet despite the impressive boom for the past 15 years.

[WhipperSnapper]

Toronto is a strange place for sure. Not too many places would have a few 150 metres towers in an othwise lowrise neighbourhood. Neither do you see 200 metre towers approved in areas with as of right zoning capped at 30 metres. It really is comparable to a teenager.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Toronto: 34 u/c
Vancouver: 2 u/c
Montreal: 8 u/c
Calgary: 8 u/c

Vancouver only has 2 towers 100-150 M under construction? That can't possibly be right...

Anyway the entire discussion was about being on foot, in which the difference between an 80M building and a 150M building is largely irrelevant to the pedestrian experience, which is I think what Beedok is referring to.

[TorontoDrew]

The Entertainment/Fashion Districts remind me of the areas around Broadway East in Manhattan. More warehouse style and not very tall buildings except for our new stock.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Anyway the entire discussion was about being on foot, in which the difference between an 80M building and a 150M building is largely irrelevant to the pedestrian experience, which is I think what Beedok is referring to.

Well then to say the pedestrian experience falls short compared to other Canadian cities would also be false. For all the high-rise, mid rise and lo rise we have there are all of the shops restaurants and business that go along with them. You can literately walk about 5km north from the shore of the lake and never hit a dead zone on Yonge. The same could be said for Queen and Bloor streets length wise. This doesn't even mention all the hoods and districts in between.

[ainvan]

This is what I meant with Chicago. The tallest buildings are not tightly squeezed like in TO. You feel the grandeur of the skyline.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Vancouver only has 2 towers 100-150 M under construction? That can't possibly be right...

Anyway the entire discussion was about being on foot, in which the difference between an 80M building and a 150M building is largely irrelevant to the pedestrian experience, which is I think what Beedok is referring to.

That's part of it. Basically if a tower is tall enough that you have to look up to see the top anywhere farther than a block or two then it doesn't really matter (most of Ottawa's towers sadly fall just below that cut off I find).

I'd also like to say that Toronto is still ahead of the others in this department, just not to the extent you'd expect. It's just when you've got things like Yonge and Bloor or Yonge and Eglington or North York or Etobicoke they don't really add to the experience when you're walking around in the downtown of the Financial District, South Core, or Entertainment District. You can't even see them from some of those spots. T

oronto has built a massive widespread footprint (as has Ottawa), which is a good way to build a city as it means wherever you go there's towers above your head and an impressive urban fabric. It does however mean that all these towers all over the city aren't easy to understand when you're walking around the downtown on foot. There's also a few surprising gaps and quick drop offs in Toronto (or Ottawa) that throw you for a loop and break up the sea of highrises.

Is it a bad thing? Absolutely not. Heck, play the long game and Toronto or Ottawa will have an endless solid jungle of highrises as each node grows and new nodes pop up (both cities are already seeing or about to see some of the 2nd tier nodes get gobbled up into the main skyline). It just means on one metric Toronto doesn't shine undisputed champion of Canada (something it manages on several other metrics), merely as a decent first place. Anyone who goes to live in Toronto and then the others for a while will see Toronto is very clearly more impressive.

I also want to say for what feels like the 100th time, I don't dislike Toronto. It's the best city in Canada on many fronts. GO Transit is awesome. The subways are solid. The streetcars are fun. When you look up and realise the towers are much taller than you'd first thought it's awesome. The TTC bus network is in my experience the best in the country by a long shot. However Canada is a large country with a number of reasonably large cities and you have to accept that they've concentrated on different things than Toronto, so the gap between Toronto and the other cities isn't massive on all fronts . However, apart from subways (where I think Montreal wins due to a move that helped bankrupt the city) I can't think of anything that Toronto doesn't win that actually matters. Toronto is pretty darned awesome, and my critiques are only ever saying ways it could be more awesome. I might joke that Toronto sucks because I'm from Hamilton, but like jokes about Toronto not being able to handle the snow it's all in good humour.

[Martin Mtl]

I find that Toronto feels bigger than Montreal in its central parts, because it is. But Montreal was bigger and denser for a much longer time and it shows as soon as you leave the central parts. In Montreal, you'll have triplexes tightly build for miles and miles, while Toronto offers single family houses. Also, Montreal's streets are in general narrower than Toronto's, which I find does have an effect on the density feeling. When I'm in Toronto, I am impressed by the size of the build form in the downtown core ( including the ED and Yorkville), but at the same time, I'm puzzled by all the one-storey buildings in the central parts of the city, compare to Montreal.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Vancouver only has 2 towers 100-150 M under construction? That can't possibly be right...

If you include Trump and Telus (both of which are already topped-out and virtually clad), there are 7 towers over 100 metres currently under construction in downtown Vancouver. That's definitely more than 2. But for a city with the hottest real estate market in Canada, if not North America, that's still pretty inexplicable.

[softee]

Gonna have to strongly disagree that downtown Vancouver and Calgary feel almost as big as downtown Toronto at street level, there are just so many other contributing "Big City" factors that add to Toronto's street level experience which bring it to a whole other level.

Vancouver and Calgary seem very tame and far smaller in comparison.

[Nouvellecosse]

What he actually said is that Toronto isn't as far ahead as one would expect based on the population difference.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

I find that Toronto feels bigger than Montreal in its central parts, because it is. But Montreal was bigger and denser for a much longer time and it shows as soon as you leave the central parts. In Montreal, you'll have triplexes tightly build for miles and miles, while Toronto offers single family houses.

In it's pre-war structures, absolutely. But you don't have stuff like this going on for 10km outside of downtown Montreal:

Also, Montreal's streets are in general narrower than Toronto's, which I find does have an effect on the density feeling.

I don't think that's correct. In either city the major routes are 4 lanes, with the odd 6 lane arterial in parts. Residential road widths are also about the same, though with the homes having larger setbacks in Toronto.

[caltrane74]

North York is ridiculous. Even Chicago doesn't have something similar to that.

Still there's no way anyone is walking (as regular routine from downtown to North York, or Yonge-Eglinton) However you can subway from North York Centre to Downtown (vice-versa) or Yonge-Eglinton and that's just part of the fun of living in the big city.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

North York is ridiculous. Even Chicago doesn't have something similar to that.

Still there's no way anyone is walking (as regular routine from downtown to North York, or Yonge-Eglinton) However you can subway from North York Centre to Downtown (vice-versa) or Yonge-Eglinton and that's just part of the fun of living in the big city.

Exactly, Toronto is amazing and endless, but it's too big to be understood by someone walking around the downtown. Combine that with a slightly more erratic set up than the next 3 biggest downtowns in Canada and it means a pedestrian who only visits the core areas of the 4 cities would probably underestimate the size differences in the cities (though looking up quickly tells you Toronto is on top). Hop on a subway, bus, car, bicycle, whatever and the scale of Toronto becomes something you can grasp.