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The Bright Building (749 King St W) | 18 + 3 fl | U/C
(07-31-2023, 04:26 PM)ac3r Wrote: The massing is the only thing I don't like about it. Those huge rectangular buildings feel so imposing when you're on the ground. Otherwise it seems to be an alright project. I hope the commercial gets leased quickly though, so it can maybe draw more people out to this area. Sadly I find this part of King so awful to walk down so the retail isn't going to really activate the street in any manner. It's all barren concrete and very little people out (the KCI kids on lunch break don't really count) because there's not much around there.

Also it's so ugly which doesn't help. At the very least it's a shame the LRT didn't have grass here. It would feel much more comfortable to walk around if there was some greenery rather than this chasm of various aggregates and metal, couple old houses and ugly old single floor commercial buildings. But there is soooooo much space around this "midtown" area, so I think in 30-40 years it'll be a lot more vibrant. Hopefully this, 900 King, the old Club Abstract area and whatever may go up where the CKCO property is is the start of something new for this place.


Pic related. Everything within the red is wasted space that could be nicely evolved over time.

[Image: Md7tUYo.png]

Agreed short of that green field being KCI's school sports field, so maybe should hold on to that one.
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(07-31-2023, 09:55 PM)cherrypark Wrote: Agreed short of that green field being KCI's school sports field, so maybe should hold on to that one.

Ahh interesting, I thought it was just a city park/field.
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(07-31-2023, 04:26 PM)ac3r Wrote: Hopefully this, 900 King, the old Club Abstract area and whatever may go up where the CKCO property is is the start of something new for this place.

I wish I had the skills and materials to make a Club Grasstract sign in the style of the original to hang on the temp fencing...
...K
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This tower is just about done, sans the street level commercial space. The fencing around the property has come down, though I have no idea when the move in dates begin. It will be interesting to see who moves into the commercial space. I'm guessing it will stay vacant for a while. Since it's located near GRH, perhaps something medical related will move in there.
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The preceding structure was a medical professional building, so that's not only possible but likely.
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It might not the best looking tower, but I like it. I would be happy for  midtown to fill out with more of these towers.    Haven't seen it from the street yet though.
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It doesn't have the nicest street level design, but I feel it's less the building itself and more than the neighbouring buildings being low rise structures. It makes it feel a bit out of place. The awful streetscape on King doesn't help much either. If they had grass rather than concrete it would have made this stretch of track and road feel a lot nicer.

But overall, it's an okay building though the rectangular footprint makes it feel very imposing. I imagine over the coming years as more developments are finished, the midtown area will look a lot better, though I suspect it'll remain a bit of a non-place where nothing much goes on due to it not really being a destination.
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What good would grass be in the middle of King St if no one can use it (say to put a park bench, picnic blanket, or sit under a tree?). Far better to step things back and along a linear park between the road and/or side walk and the imposing street walls.
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It's not meant to be used by people. I'm referring to green track in this case, which can be anything from grass, moss to sedum but there are also additional things that could have been improved when we had the chance. A bit more thought into the design could have granted this area some much needed atmospheric and aesthetic improvement. It needn't always be tangibly functional. A quality environment is just as purposeful to people as a bench under a tree can be.

Green track has benefits for things like improving local ecology (whether it benefits birds, bees or subterranean things like worms), mitigating heat island impacts, rainwater/snowmelt runoff management, less pollution (that is by using less concrete...most people don't understand just how bad concrete is...it makes the oil industry seem green), noise reductions and so on. Overall it's a superior thing to use.

But most importantly, it simply looks nice. For example, here is some grass and sedum track in Zwickau, Germany. The sedum is great because it offers pollinators a great resource for plants to use. Similarly, here is some green track in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany that not only has grass on the trackbed, but also plants running up the actual poles holding the centenary lines as well as plants that run along the track to mitigate noise and make it look a lot prettier.

There's no reason we couldn't have replicated this here and had much nicer streets (well I'm sure our "leaders" would have had some excuses ready). It could have made so much of the LRT route feel a lot more pleasing, with this particular section of King Street being a good example. No amount of new buildings will really change the fact that it'll always have this lifeless, cold atmosphere when you're actually outside. To make it even nicer, moving the power lines underground could have opened up a lot of space for new trees, bushes, shrubs, flowers, grass etc to be planted along the sidewalks which would have further improved this area. Even some non-plant barriers between the sidewalk and roads/tracks could have been put up which would have made it a lot nicer for pedestrians if they didn't have to see or hear cars and trains going by all day.

[Image: RbxCTLz.jpg]

[Image: nEZ6I1X.jpg]
Too late to do anything smart like this, sadly.
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(11-07-2023, 03:31 PM)ac3r Wrote: It's not meant to be used by people. I'm referring to green track in this case, which can be anything from grass, moss to sedum but there are also additional things that could have been improved when we had the chance. A bit more thought into the design could have granted this area some much needed atmospheric and aesthetic improvement. It needn't always be tangibly functional. A quality environment is just as purposeful to people as a bench under a tree can be.

Gorgeous. Thanks for the photos!
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It's nice, yeah? There are so many nice tram and light rail systems in Europe that have this and it looks so pretty, while also being really useful in ways we don't really see. It's a shame we didn't do it here. Maybe the Cambridge line could do it in some places though. Toronto will have green track on one of their new lines though I think it'll just be grass which is a shame as grass is useless but at least it's good for water run off, lowering the noise and many other nice benefits.
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