city building : In The News

Just as this year's Toronto Pride celebrations were fading from local headlines, the city made a splash in the United Kingdom during London's Pride festival.
 
Last Saturday, London hosted the third-ever WorldPride, an event that happens every few years, aiming to deliver a lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans parade and festival of international scope and appeal. Though the streets of central London were packed with excited attendees, colourful characters and intrigued onlookers, a series of organizational snafus led to the entertainment program being dramatically reduced—and the parade turned into a march without motorized vehicles—just days before the event.
 
Meanwhile, delegates from Pride Toronto, Ontario Tourism and Tourism Toronto, promoting Toronto's own upcoming WorldPride celebrations in 2014, swept in to fill some of the gaps. When the official media area in Trafalgar Square didn't happen, London Pride organizers directed international reporters to Toronto's media lounge in a hotel just outside the square. In fact, that's where some London organizers went themselves for a break.
 
More dramatically, Canadians dominated the entire final hour of London's Pride programming, with Proud FM host Mike Chalut taking over as MC to welcome '80s star Corey Hart and Toronto booster and high-energy headliner Deborah Cox to the stage. By day's end, there was a buzz that Toronto's WorldPride organizational abilities would decidedly exceed London's.
 
"According to [Toronto] organizers, they have been planning it for the past four years," reported Gay Star News.
 
Caryl Dolinko of InterPride, the international association of Pride organizers that sanctions WorldPride, told the Toronto Star that Toronto's is "going to be the biggest and probably one of the best WorldPrides we'll ever have… Toronto will do it right."
 
Read the full stories here and here
Original sources: Gay Star News & Toronto Star
 

Progress reinvigorating Toronto's waterfront hasn't been fast, but Susan Griffith, a writer for the UK's Independent newspaper, seems impressed by what's taking shape.
 
"Over the past 20 years, the city fathers have been imaginatively transforming the concrete piers, abandoned silos and crumbling warehouses of the industrial waterfront into welcoming public spaces."
 
Offering a tour starting at the Toronto Music Garden, Griffith suggests heading east.
 
"Within 10 or 15 minutes the sign for the unlovely Redpath Sugar Refinery will come into view, hiding an unexpected urban treat. This is the third summer that a load of sand has transformed a carpark into Canada's Sugar Beach, featuring 150 white slatted Muskoka chairs under pink umbrellas, where Torontonians come to picnic and sunbathe. Swimming is not permitted but you can cool off in the fountains that shoot out of the pavement."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: The Independent
 

The Daily Commercial News gives the details of the design plans for the new Canary District on the waterfront.
 
"'Unlike many athletes' village projects which are purpose-built to house competitors during major athletic events and then converted to other uses following the games, this project is advancing the building of a community that was already planned and under development,' said Meg Davis, Waterfront Toronto's vice-president of development."
…
"To ensure aesthetic diversity across the Canary District, teams from four architecture firms—architectsAlliance, KPMB, Daoust Lestage Inc. and MacLellan Jaunkalns Miller Architects—were commissioned to design 'unique, contemporary buildings' reflective of their trademark architectural styles, Dundee Kilmer Developments said."
 
"The integrated design team was tasked to work within Waterfront Toronto's precinct and block plan built over years of consultation between key stakeholders such as the City of Toronto, local community groups, Infrastructure Ontario, and TO2015 "while still injecting their own unique creative flourishes to build a truly livable and sustainable neighbourhood."
 
Read the full story here
Original source: Daily Commercial News

Plans to create a national park in the Rouge Valley are picking up steam.
 
On April 10, Pickering council voted to endorse a statement of intent from Parks Canada that confirms the commitment of all parties involved.
 
"A staff report noted that the creation of the park will require the transfer of lands from various governments and public agencies within and adjacent to the Rouge Valley, including Pickering. Once transferred, those lands will no longer be subject to taxes or payments in lieu of taxes."
 
"Planning discussions to identify the boundaries of the park are expected to begin this year under the direction of Parks Canada. No budget numbers for the park have been announced as yet."
 
The creation of a national park was announced during the June 2011 throne speech.
 
Read the full story here
 
Original Source: DurhamRegion.com
 

As you might expect, GTA projects dominated the 2012 Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) Awards.

Six of the top 15 projects are located in the GTA and represent some of the region's most high-profile projects and firms. Design Excellence winners include the Bay Adelaide Centre's west tower (WZMH Architects), Lawren Harris House (Drew Mandel Architects), SPLIT House (superkül Inc.), TIFF Bell Lightbox (Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects), Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex (Kongats Architects) and Vaughan City Hall (Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects).
 
The Ryerson Recreation and Athletics Centre (Lett/Smith Architects) won the Landmark Award.
 
Read the complete list of winners here
 
Original Source: Canadian Architect

The Wall Street Journal spotlights the Toronto Waterfront redevelopment in a tripartite feature that includes not only an in-depth article on the effort,  but also a slideshow of the many redevelopment projects underway and a video interview with Waterfront Toronto CEO John Campbell.

Declaring the redevelopment of Toronto's shoreline, "one of the world's biggest waterfront revitalization efforts" the Wall Street Journal looks both at projects still in progress (e.g. the West Donlands) and those projects that have been successfully integrated into the fabric of the city (e.g. the Simcoe Wavedeck).

see full feature here (subscription required)
original source Wall Street Journal 

Whatever it felt like on the ground for Torontonians, our city's star continued to shine brightly internationally in 2011. Surveying the international media, Toronto received rave reviews.
 
That was especially the case in rankings of global cities. We were never far from the top. Name the rating system—happiness, innovation, reputation, economic power, economic security, museums, entrepreneurship, sustainability, as a travel destination, liveability or well-being, Toronto usually scored high. In some areas, Toronto came out of nowhere. As the Grasshopper Group wrote in February: "Although not historically known as a nexus of entrepreneurship, Toronto has come onto the scene as a fast-moving startup city."
 
But spreadsheets weren't the only thing telling us we're doing just fine. Visiting reporters also found Toronto to have charms and attractions that can't necessarily be measured by cold, hard numbers. Our diversity and snow-free streets attracted attention, as did our vintage shops and movie locations, our life-sciences sector, the reinvented Roncesvalles village, TIFF, our 3D and game industries, our music scene, Luminato, the Distillery District (multiple times—a real travel-writer fave), our "creative force"  and, of course, the CN Tower's newest thrill, the Edgewalk.

But if we had to pick the top two things that people were talking about when they talked about Toronto on 2011, it would have to be our banks and our love of towers. Not only did we avoid a real estate and banking crisis, we decided to keep moving onward and upward—especially upward—making us the North American city with the most tower construction currently in progress.