City
Bell Lightbox and Festival Tower taking the Entertainment District to new heights
The Bell Lightbox and Festival Tower are major catalysts of the rapid change that the Entertainment District is undergoing. Envisioned as the home for the Toronto International Film Festival, the Bell Lightbox will also feature year-round programming and events.
Last year, blogTO took us inside the then half-completed building and gave us an idea of how the building will positively impact the arts community in Toronto.
But as the building approaches its completion, there are other questions that the building itself is raising. For instance, from an urban standpoint, does the Bell Lightbox and Festival Tower fit into its neighbourhood?
The podium is much taller than the 19th century buildings on the south side of the street, and the tower is much taller than anything else in the nearby vicinity. This may seem an academic concern, particularly in Toronto where so many different types of buildings sit side by side. But it does contradict some of the planning principles that the city holds to be important
And while nearby developments face enormous scrutiny in the planning process, the Lightbox, because of its important economic and artistic impact, never received the opposition that, for example, Theatre Park is receiving. This is despite the fact that Theatre Park aims to create public space, is designed by a well-respected architect, and has a bigger setback than the Lightbox.
The result is that developers in the area feel that there are no real development guidelines, only the wishes of politicians and the local ratepayers. As Christopher Hume points out, "As it stands, each project seems to be considered in a kind of regulatory vacuum, a one-off, as if it existed in isolation from the rest of the city."
The result is that many projects end up at the Ontario Municipal Board, where developments are judged in terms of precedent, rather than aesthetic or design merit. And the effect of Lightbox on the planning process for the neighbourhood is pronounced: it is giving the OMB precedent to approve buildings of 30+ storeys up and down King Street, like M5V Life Condos. The approval of Theatre Park might be next.
There is no doubt that the Lightbox will provide a great home for TIFF, and for movie-lovers. But has the city shot itself in the foot - planning-wise - by allowing the Lightbox to be built here?
Discussion
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My problem with Lightbox is more-so the impact on King Street. Anyone that takes the 504 knows how bad its become, and anyone who rides a bike on King knows how the taxi presence is simply out of control. I don't know what the city is going to do, but with the Gardiner redevelopment projects, and with more towers going up, they need to start something that can alleviate congestion of we're going to end up with a Mississauga the size of Newark
The south side of King may have 19th century bones, but they building owners have whored the facades up with so much cheese any discussion of 19th century charm is completely irrelevant since it hasn't been that way for decades. Joe Mama's, la fonico, lexy lounge, z teca - they're all ugly as hell. Further west, the atrocious Holiday Inn a.k.a. stack of bars of soap is an architectural embarrassment.
Taxis should wait on the side streets or maybe the city could simply bother to give them tickets for clogging up King.
Maybe they should eliminate street parking along there altogether.
There's already parking under Metro Hall and LIghtbox will have parking too.
At the same time, I would argue that no matter what the height, this is a positive. The whole King-Widmer-Adelaide-John block was almost entirely a surface parking lot not long ago (check Bing's aerial map if you don't believe me). Now you will have a building that will contribute not only to the street life of King, but also culturally to the city as a whole. Win, win, win.
Personally, I think they should just shut down the core to traffic, bulldoze a ring around it and pave a giant parking lot with Segway rental stations, so that everyone who commutes has to park their car outside the core and Segway it everywhere. That would be soooooo cool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Denmark
While I could see some limitations being put on development on west Queen West or King West, the downtown core should be open to development--with quality high rises being preferable to generic mid-rises, IMO. Some of the older warehouse-type buildings are worth preserving--but it's a reality that eventually artsy areas and artsy types will be pushed further away as the value of the area goes up.
This is not to say there should not be parks--see again, New York's Central Park or Chicago's Grant Park and waterfront parks. But Toronto has failed to preserve large open spaces, and what we're left with in the core is the occasional parkette.
Hopefully, some of the newer developments, like the West Donlands, will take all of this into consideration and have a mix of high and low rise, a mix of income housing, good public transportation access, room for schools, businesses, shopping, and plenty of public spaces and parkland.
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And height is a tricky issue. I agree you don't need tall buildings to create a world-class city. I live in Amsterdam now, so I live in a short (yet dense, 4-7 stories) world-class city...
(Toronto should also stop trying to be big and tall and like New York City, because it will never catch up. It should be itself: messy, Victorian, diverse, relatively modern.)
... but the height of the Lightbox doesn't bother me. Its how it hits the ground. Why do I have to walk by a giant monolith that says: I care not about you. Does it say arts and culture and entertainment... I think not.