City
The SkyWalk could come crashing to the ground
Union Station's arching SkyWalk, that most photogenic of Toronto's urban landmarks, could be on the chopping block if the city's preservation board adopts a report recommending its demolition at next week's meeting.
Revised construction plans from Allied REIT, the SkyWalk's owner, to enclose the downtown terminus of Metrolinx's Union-Pearson Express call for the removal of a large part of the curved glass arcade parallel to Station Street by summer at the latest. A small remaining section closer to to Simcoe Street could be later be gobbled up by the podium for a separate office tower project.
Finished in 1989, the SkyWalk was built to connect Union Station with the SkyDome and reduce the need for additional parking spaces near the ballpark by providing a direct link to TTC and GO trains. The post-modern curved metal and glass structure was the first major construction project in the railway lands after the CN Tower.
If the area around the station is built to the new, revised plan the route itself from Union to the ballpark and convention centre, which forms part of the PATH network, will be retained inside the a new, square-roofed structure. The bridge crossing the railway tracks will be unaffected.
According to digital designs released with the report, Station Street, named for its former location in front of Old Union Station, will be closed off at one end and turned into an pedestrian plaza if the tower project begins as currently planned.
The SkyWalk itself forms part of the Union Station Heritage Conservation District. Though the city says in a report it would have preferred to keep the existing arcade, it cites "construction scheduling and programmatic requirements" as the reason for the design shift, suggesting pressures of Metrolinx's pledge to complete the project in time for the 2015 Pan Am Games are at play.
Allison Meistrich, a city of Toronto planner, insists that's not the case. "It is our understanding that the ARL station fit better (fewer grade changes, etc.) in a reconstructed SkyWalk connection. The ARL is to be running in time for the Pan Am Games and those timing issues will affect the project phasing, construction, etc., but is not a factor in the design change regarding the SkyWalk."
A 2007 report recommended demolishing only the west end of the SkyWalk and keeping the section closest to Union intact. Text on the Union-Pearson Express website describes the new station sitting within the existing structure but that design has since been altered.
The report, if adopted, will have to clear city council before demolition can proceed.
What are your thoughts? Is the SkyWalk a fair price to pay for a decent rail link to the airport or should Metrolinx have found a way to stick to its existing plans?
UPDATE: 14/02/2013
The owners of the SkyWalk, Allied REIT, have withdrawn their application to demolish the eastern portion of the curved glass roof, the section closes to Union Station, for "a variety of reasons." The Union-Pearson Express station, which was unaffected by Allied's proposed design change, will now stay inside the existing glass roof as originally illustrated on the project website.
The demolition of the western portion, which is part of a separate application, is unaffected by today's decision and could still go ahead depending on what Allied decides in the coming months.
Is this a win for SkyWalk fans or could the space have used a new design? Are you happy that most of the SkyWalk roof will remain?
Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.
Images: "The Skywalk at Night" by Ben Roffelsen/blogTO Flickr pool and City of Toronto.
Discussion
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It's kinda ugly too.
Can't remember what other retail there was. Kind of depressing to walk through it now.
i'm on the platform every single day and i swear i never see anyone working on the glass atrium.
the skypath is a rusted, leaking, p.o.s.
even worse eye sore from track level
im not being a troll. its just whenever you mention public transit in toronto, its always at a snails pace, just to keep the labourers employed for a longer stint.
we should get some ex-dubai laborers. be done in 1/10th the time.
If it bothers you so much then stay and work in your suburb.
We are building/renovating all these buildings to accommodate you suburb people.
Yes you are right... We should get some ex-dubai workers.
We will do the same as Dubai, import thousands of indian/pakistani workers, put them up in some slum and pay them $3 a month so people like you don't have to look at construction or be inconvenienced when you get off your train...
Give me a break...
back to work.
all i'm saying is the work ethic of a dubai-worker is unequivocally stronger than domestic help.
would be more than glad to ship em over and give'em a market rate
They are modern slaves. And you ARE a troll.
Meaning, all the cables, sewers and subway tunnels that we have under our city i am pretty sure it makes it a bit more difficult. I am sure they plan for this, but as always, things happen.
So its pretty much more difficult to build on something existing then an empty plot of land.
Also,
The Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest building, also in Dubai. It has been completed now for a few years and is still not hooked up to Dubai's sewage system. Meaning, at the base of the tower, somewhere deep in its bowels, there is a huge tank that collects and stores all of the black water from the tower. So everything flushed down the toilet, down a sink is stored in this tank. Then once full, trucks pump it all out and transport it to some treatment facility far out in the desert.
Supposedly this is a major problem with Dubai as most of these new buildings are in the same situation.
Sometimes the truck drivers are stuck in a convoy 24 hours long.
I guess Dubai is not as glamourous as you think...
1) They are performing a $650 million dollar renovation of the country's busiest regional transit hub - all while trying to minimize the impact of it.
2) The original design obviously didn't concern itself with the reality of what this future renovation entails. It's bloody complicated. There used to be earth here: http://www.dcnonl.com/images/archivesid/46932/430.jpg
3) Typically, unforeseen conditions creep up that slow progress. Think about renovating something in an old house. You take down the old stuff and find knob & tube wiring and lead pipes or asbestos which you weren't expecting for whatever reason. Typically, you can't fix that kind of thing right then and there and you might be pressed to meet whatever deadline you set for yourself. It's perhaps a simplistic example, but I think the point is clear.
It's simply easier to build new - especially when the renovation of an existing structure is the size of this project.
What we do need to do is hold contractors to timelines and levy contractual penalties if they are at fault or should have realistically foreseen an impact to their operations. I believe Metrolinx for example has imposed something called "Alternate Finance and Procurement" on their projects which imposes financial penalties if late or over budget. Something like this should be the gold standard for any public project - can't speak to how realistically effective it is though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU
I'm sure 'Christ' will be running to go work there soon.
We pay a ransoms worth in taxes here, and subsidize inefficiency.
Sure love generic square boxers. Aka lazy architecture.
Buses could pull in under ground. Perfect location for it.
It seems too much of an iconic look to give-up, I'm pretty tired of glass boxes being everywhere.
BTW, Simon... those workers aren't paid $3.00 / hour. They are paid about $200 / MONTH. A princely sum to many of them, but divide that into the 18 hours / day they are working, then figure in that they have to BUY their passport back for $2000 before they can leave or even think about sending money back home. If you survive the filthy conditions they are forced to live in. Watch the Youtube link above.
All I pointed up is that work completed over there is done faster.
The counterarguments about quality maybe valid...I'm not in the trade if the truth be told.
Even worse is the implicit assumption that if people are paid more...progress would slow down. Thats what the bleeding hearts in here are implying.
Work is done faster when people are people are paid less.
Bring em over...instead of paying some union salary to lay concrete install glass blah blah blah...
In the end. We agree to disagree. Whatever.
Big miss by the City, Province and federal government via CN Rail, not to have required all that development over the past 30 years on the old wider Railway, leave a subteranian strata free for burying the Gardner or the rail lines.
Eventually the rail lines will all be burried from at least Bathurst to Jarvis. The Sky walk will be evolved to part of these coverings like North South sidewalks or incorporated into the buildings built over the rail lines.
All in the name of progress.
I don't get all this rush for infrastructure for the Pan Am games. Does anyone travel to actually see those? I didn't think anybody cared about them except other athletes. I really don't see them putting a huge strain on our infrastructure. I'm glad they're forcing them to get some much needed transit projects done, but it just seems like a ridiculous reason to do something essential.