One Young (née Mayfair Hotel) | 5 fl | Complete

[realtyforward]

In the spirit of demolition (pardon my sarcasm), with the Mayfair and Hymmen buildings being removed, part of me feels like the two remaining buildings should also be demolished to create the best redevelopment opportunity. ... In any event, there's an opportunity for some great density and master planning on that site under current zoning if the frontage from Young St to the Elements building was considered as a whole. Unfortunately, with multiple property owners with different timelines and agendas, that can be difficult to achieve.

I think increasing the amount of frontage belonging to a single building here tends to result in more boring buildings and less interesting streetscapes. Demolishing a good building in order to make a wider homogeneous facade is not my idea of an improvement. I think if we got rid of the requirements to provide parking within every project and the minimum frontage requirements, it would be a lot easier to build good density without a large land assembly.

I see where you are coming from, but there's great examples of new buildings with large frontages and interesting facades - anything can be created with great design. Take the Waterloo Town Square development (LCBO to Channers) for example - it's one building but has the allusion of many due to the varying facades. Anyway, my point is that larger blank slates make it easier to redevelop and limit the number of vacant pockets in the core. I can appreciate the position that Weber Chambers should stay, but there are economies of scale with larger redevelopments and the trade off might be that we see a longer period of vacant land than we might otherwise if it were gone. I do like the Weber Chambers building though - I hope it isn't structurally compromised through this demolition work.