Canadian City Proposals II

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Yeah I wasn't aware of it either and I do like it. But I do think Bloor deserves to have something that interacts with it more rather than be relegated to the sidelines.

And the old addition doesn't really affect my view of the proposed new entrance. I don't get the distinction between whether it was "added" to the old building or just replaced the previous addition. It's like saying, "He didn't actually put on that hat. The new hat just replaced a hat that he put on earlier". In either case it still has to look good, be appropriate for the occasion, work with the rest of the outfit / architecture, etc.

[WhipperSnapper]

The Queen Elizabeth Terrace Building was actually built in the 1980s and she was present at the official opening.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ That would be very cool actually. Sort of like a pos-industrial, ecopunk utopia.

[WhipperSnapper]

Yeah, that's really cool. It's almost too big and too immersive.

[ScreamingViking]

It's very ambitious.

The corporation that bought the shell of Stelco from U.S. Steel has done more than I expected, but their long-game had to have been about the land and not the steel-making. While I have doubts about the container facility ever being viable (it would require moving containers from ships at deep-water ports to/from others that are compatible with the St. Lawrence Seaway; CN and CP will despise that kind of competition and move to kill it) much of the land can be adapted for other commercial/industrial uses. If it ends up just being a warehouse farm with some pedestrian pathways along the shore then so much potential will be wasted.

There are probably fears this will become a hotbed for tall condos, but the previous uses of the land will limit their financial viability.

I also wonder what mysteries will be discovered as infill is dug up. I bet a lot of "problems" were solved there.

IMO this all represents an enormous opportunity for the city.

EDIT: Yes, "Stelco" has nothing to do with this, other than being a link in the chain. It was bought by a company called Bedrock Industries after U.S. Steel owned it; Bedrock renamed it Stelco again (from U.S. Steel Canada). Bedrock has kept some of the steel-related facilities but sold off much of the land to another company called Slate. Many of the old steel plant buildings have been or are in the process of being demolished.

[Innsertnamehere]

To be clear here Stelco has no involvement in this. They sold the land a few years ago and a toronto developer is proposing this now.

[LikesBikes]

I love that Hamilton proposal. If successful it could be something like the Forks in Winnipeg.

[J.OT13]

Other than the last two, those Vancouver proposals are stellar. First one I thought was a heritage building.

Really liking that Hamilton proposal.

[WhipperSnapper]

I probably wouldn't say stellar. They are quality.

The Surrey master planned block expands on the city hall (?) block. The Delta one is interesting although the pedestrian corridor should be wider. I'm assuming this area is marked for a high rise urban node and this block may be the centrepiece of that node. It's still Delta.

[hipster duck]

That Hamilton proposal is amazing; it would be *the* reason to visit Hamilton, not just *a* reason to visit Hamilton.

But where is the money coming from? The cost of building that vision looks astronomical, beginning with the things we can't see in the renderings like remediating a toxic site. And what are the revenue generators? I don't see a lot of leasable space or even event space - or at least not anything to the scale that would recoup the costs. If only 1/10 of that gets built, I'd consider it a win.

[niwell]

Echoing what was said above, the Hamilton proposal looks amazing and something that would be a legitimate destination. Also very ambitious and expensive. Not sure how realistic getting something like this done would be, especially at the proposed scale. Still shows you what potential there is though.

[ScreamingViking]

For more context about the redevelopment of much of Hamilton's former Stelco complex, the local news story has an aerial view of much of the lower city showing how the proposal fits in. The image covers roughly 12 km side to side and more than 8 km top to bottom. Much of the operation of Dofasco (now owned by Arcelor-Mittal) is in that other large dark rectangle just to the left of the redevelopment area (in this view, east is to the left and north to the bottom) -- it will still be there as a working steel-making plant, so there should be no illusions that what's proposed won't have to be compatible with surrounding industrial lands. Incidentally, Dofasco aims to stop using coke and begin making steel with natural gas before switching to hydrogen eventually... this is also ambitious but will do a lot to "clean up" pollution issues.



Slate must have a reasonable case or knows it can get government funding to help with remediation where it's needed, unless this is just window-dressing.

From the story:

Due to its long history as a steel manufacturing hub, much of the land will to be remediated before anything new can built. However, Dejonckheere said because much of the area is proposed to be home to advanced manufacturing facilities, the requirements for clean up are less severe than they would be if a residential project was being built there.

Even so, he said Slate identified 20 to 40 acres of the property that are being designed as “hot spots” that will need intensive clean up. Depending how the remediation is done, the process could take years.

“You can do everything from what is conventionally called a 'dig and dump,'” Dejonckheere said. “You can do that in a couple of months. Or there are several versions of land farming which can take much longer. Five to seven years.”

Dejonckheere said Slate assumes it will bear much of the cost of the cleanup, but the company will also seek to take advantage of funding for environmental cleanup available from the City of Hamilton and other levels of government.

The areas that may become public access zones are not located in these hot spots, he said.

What's buried within the fill that the steel facilities were later built upon is definitely a big unknown, and there will be surprises. This was all done in a time when environmental regulations were not stringent and there was probably little oversight.

[TorontoDrew]

Sorry if this has been posted but I can't find it anywhere.


source: https://www.bdpquadrangle.com
128 Peter
Located in the heart of Toronto’s bustling Entertainment District, 128 Peter is a 39-storey condominium tower designed in dialogue with the surrounding brick and beam warehouse context in a sensitive juxtaposition between old and new. The tower features dramatic cantilevers sheltering Victorian houses that sit on the site which will be respectfully restored.

[Nouvellecosse]

With the Hamilton steel site, a lot of toxic land remediation can be done with certain plants that draw toxins out of the soil up through their root systems allowing the plants to be harvested and disposed of safely. Not sure of those specific toxins but such advances can make it less expensive than in prior years. The revenue could be partly as the entry fee as a cool urban park. The render shows a variety of attractions like wall climbing and an observation platform. As a comparison, the regular adult admission price for the Montreal Botanical Garden is just under $25, so I don't see why this type of garden couldn't also attract visitors at that price. And then any additional revenue from vendors within. If the botanical garden can sustain itself at that revenue level and it's pretty large as well, then this might work out.

[WhipperSnapper]

Slate like everyone with a large commercial portfolio had a bad 2023. Fingers crossed though.

That Scarborough Junction proposal doesn't surprise me next to rail transit. The skyscraper heights and the population greater than a small town makes no sense.

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

With the Hamilton steel site, a lot of toxic land remediation can be done with certain plants that draw toxins out of the soil up through their root systems allowing the plants to be harvested and disposed of safely. Not sure of those specific toxins but such advances can make it less expensive than in prior years. The revenue could be partly as the entry fee as a cool urban park. The render shows a variety of attractions like wall climbing and an observation platform. As a comparison, the regular adult admission price for the Montreal Botanical Garden is just under $25, so I don't see why this type of garden couldn't also attract visitors at that price. And then any additional revenue from vendors within. If the botanical garden can sustain itself at that revenue level and it's pretty large as well, then this might work out.

I work in the environmental industry - phytoremediation practices like the ones you are describing may be well researched academically, but they are extremely rarely used in practice. I have personally never seen or heard of it being used in Ontario or even Canada. The issue is that it is not practical when you are planning to do something with the site afterward, mainly because developers have timelines and want guarantees. A remediation program dependent on putting plants in the ground, ensuring they take, making sure they have enough water, waiting for them to grow, and then sampling the soil to determine if your program actually worked or not simply doesn't offer any guarantee that the soil is actually cleaned up to the appropriate standards, and would take way too long.

A site like this is very large, complicated, and the remediation program will likely find a little bit of pretty much everything you would typically run analysis for. It is going to be an expensive remediation and there isn't much way around just removing the contaminated soils. Given that portions of the site are on the water, there is a good chunk of the site that will be held to some of our most stringent environmental standards. Even some highly specialized remediation techniques like in-situ groundwater injection/treatment/recirculation don't always offer a guarantee that anything will actually improve. I have seen some cases where contamination that is deep and difficult to remove has been capped with geosynthetic fabric to contain it. Fortunately these days, though, there is now technology that allows the treatment of contaminated soil, where it can be improved enough to a point where it can be brought back and backfilled in again, which saves a ton of money and avoids just sending it all to the landfill. Sometimes this can even be done on the property itself with a mobile treatment plant, which saves even more money.

What will happen all depends on what they find and how much money the developer has to get this property cleaned up.

[niwell]

Amongst the fake business names in the Scarborough proposal renderings they also included a real one - Eastbound Brewing, which has a brewpub on Queen East in Riverside. I'm guessing that was an accident as this is all very preliminary and the chance of actually getting a business like that isn't too high to begin with!

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by niwell

Amongst the fake business names in the Scarborough proposal renderings they also included a real one - Eastbound Brewing, which has a brewpub on Queen East in Riverside. I'm guessing that was an accident as this is all very preliminary and the chance of actually getting a business like that isn't too high to begin with!

I know a few people that work over at Eastbound and I know they've been looking to expand out so I'm not surprised to see them opening in Scarborough (if the render is accurate). A few smaller brewers in the city have started to expand out like Left Field that started in a back ally in Leslieville now has a location across town in Liberty Village.

[WhipperSnapper]

Not being built anytime soon. The made up name is coincidential.

[TorontoDrew]

I guess you would know better then the staff at Eastbound.