Lai Land Economics Weekend Toronto
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22 23 24 09 16 LAI LAND ECONOMICS WEEKEND TORONTO VIEWS It’s been called “a city in mid-puberty,” an adolescent place needing to decide—and soon— LEW what it wants to be when it grows up. Will “Toronto the Good” become “The 6ix,” Drake’s COMMITTEE languid and assured city that has stopped car- ing if anyone notices? Or will it be Rob Ford’s, TORONTO focussed not on grand visions, but on diligently BRONWYN KROG UrbanForme solving small problems at street level? Historically, Toronto has not dreamt big— Born Saint Paul, Minn.; to Muddy York in 1975. it preferred careful architecture and avoided “It’s just pure luck grand avenues. (Narrow streets, as well as penny- that I was in this city pinching politicians, frustrate transit here.) and on this career But in the last decade, the city has welcomed path during a time exuberant buildings, including Will Alsop’s of growth, prosperity, and peace.” playful Sharp Centre, Frank Gehry’s AGO reno, and Maki Fumihiko’s Aga Khan Museum. LEW Co-chair KEVIN HARPER To its credit, Toronto has long taken cheer- RUSSELL MATHEW Toronto Rehab ful pride in the heterogeneous, multicultural Hemson Consulting Foundation neighbourhoods that Jane Jacobs evangelized, Born Edmonton; Born in Methodist but is just starting to admit adult angst about to Hogtown in 1983. Rome. Returned the ones that aren’t working so well. We’re confi- “I wanted to live near “to escape the hell Queen and Spadina, of suburban life. dent we’re alleviating social problems through the coolest corner in My partner hates redevelopment in Regent Park, but not sure Canada. Everyone it, but Toronto’s not we can repeat that success in the inner suburbs wore black all the time.” a bad place at all.” of Malvern or Jane-Finch. In Toronto, the downtown thrives without much fuss, but the ADRIAN LITAVSKI suburbs keep us up at night. Johnston Litavski When Stephen Marche described Toronto Born in The 6ix. “As a child, riding in the car as pubescent in The Guardian, he also called along the Gardiner, it “the most fascinating totally boring city I would press my face in the world.” Welcome to LEW Toronto 2016— against the window, #lailew to those on social media—hosted engrossed by the by the Simcoe Chapter of LAI. This weekend, lights, the activity. I still want to do that.” we’ll prove Marche is at least partly wrong. LEW Co-chair DAVID MCKAY LESLIE YAGER MHBC Retired lawyer Born London, Ont.; Born Washington, DC; to T-dot in 1999. “This to Turonno in 1969. city is my home; it’s “Vietnam had a big where I belong. It can impact on me. Canada feel big, busy, and had become a haven dynamic. Just a few for protesters and minutes later, it’s draft dodgers.” small-town friendly.” Fall 2016 LEW Guide 3 DAY 01 TD CENTRE / FINANCIAL DISTRICT If opening the St Lawrence Seaway in 1959 created an upstream flow of economic power from rue Saint-Jacques 8:00 AM in Montreal to Bay Street in Continental breakfast Toronto’s Financial District, Le Germain Hotel the 1976 election of a separatist Quebec government signifi- 8:30 – 10 AM cantly goosed the current. LAI Executive Committee In between those events, the Meeting Toronto Dominion Bank hired architect Ludwig Mies van 10 AM – Noon der Rohe to design a new head- LAI Chapter Presidents’ quarters at King and Bay. The Roundtable complex is the largest Mies in the world and was his last LEF Board Meeting major commission. Like the Seagram Building President’s Noon – 1 PM in New York, these buildings Lunch are classics of Mies’s disci- Reception plined International Style— Join LAI President Steven 1 – 4:30 PM restrained, ordered and rigor- Gragg and Simcoe Chapter LAI Board of Governors & LEF ously detailed. Their style President Bronwyn Krog for Board of Trustees Meeting influenced other Toronto struc- the opening of the Fall 2016 tures, and the retail concourse Land Economics Weekend. 1 – 4:30 PM below was the origin of the This event (business casual LEW registration PATH system, which links major attire) will be hosted by Le Germain Hotel buildings and the transit sys- McCarthy Tétrault, one of tem throughout downtown. Canada’s leading law firms, LEW BEGINS As you cross the plaza on the 53rd floor of the at King and Bay (the TD Bank landmark TD Bank Tower. 6 – 7:30 PM Tower is on the south side), look It’s a short cab ride or ten- President’s Reception for two Miesian hallmarks— minute walk east along King McCarthy Tétrault precisely articulated corners Street from the hotel. 53rd Floor, TD Bank Tower and I-beam window mullions. King and Bay streets From the building’s 53rd floor, the core looks more crowded Please check in at the TD than when this tower opened Bank Tower security desk for a half-century ago, but the view access to the elevators. remains spectacular. Fall 2016 LEW Guide 5 DAY 02 3 LEW TALKS EGLINTON AVE Results of our experiment russell mathew, partner, hemson consulting Toronto is a modern experiment in large-scale, international 2 immigration, comparable in that respect to New York City at the turn of the last century. Now the sixth-most populous metro- 8:00 am politan area in North America, Toronto is also Canada’s centre Continental breakfast of banking and business activity and English Canada’s media Le Germain Hotel [h] and arts capital. 8:30 – 10:45 am Toronto: an accidental metropolis LEW Talks on the Toronto joe berridge, partner, urban strategies region’s growth and its unre- Somehow our provincial no-account town has become one of the lenting real estate boom top dozen global urban centres, with no federal or provincial— and certainly no municipal—policy intention. How did this happen, 11:00 – Noon and what do we do now? Toronto’s resistance to big ideas may BLOOR ST Tour of TIFF Bell Lightbox be an indulgence we can no longer afford. King Street West at John [1] Tall new buildings Noon – 1:30 pm mark conway, partner, NBLC YONGE ST YONGE Lunch Back in 2010, nearly half of North America’s high-rise construction Restaurant suggestions, p. 8 was in Toronto; the cranes are still swinging today. The condo market DON PKWYVALLEY is, the joke goes, in the 15th year of a five-year cycle. Is the mar- 1 2:00 – 3:30 pm ket’s strength dependent on government policy, limited land supply, offshore investment, or the urban orientation of millennials? KING ST Neighbourhood tour and talk: Thorncliffe Park [2] Retail therapy 4:00 – 5:30 pm briar DE lange, executive director, bloor-yorkville BIA h Tour of Aga Khan Museum Yorkville, once a sleepy village suburb and then a ’60s hippie hang- 77 Wynford Drive [3] out, is now an upmarket residential and shopping area. The Business Improvement Association’s ambitious streetscape improvement Y T O R O N T O B A 5:30 pm plan for Bloor Street has reinvigorated Toronto’s “Mink Mile” as a Dinner pedestrian-oriented retail destination. Diwan Restaurant, Aga Khan Museum Growth in a liveable future jennifer keesmaat, chief planner, city of toronto Toronto is in the midst of an urban boom and an unprecedented ACCESS THE influx of residents and jobs. By 2041, the downtown population is projected to nearly double, placing strain on undersized and COMPLETE MAP outdated infrastructure. To maintain the liveability of our city, we need new, bold, and proactive responses to these pressures. www.bit.ly/LEW2016 Fall 2016 LEW Guide 7 DAY 02 1 TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX 2 THORNCLIFFE PARK 3 AGA KHAN MUSEUM 1 TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX Lunch From its first run in 1976 After the TIFF Bell Lightbox through its growth into the tour, venture on your own for “most influential film festival, lunch. Here are a few nearby period” (Time, 2007), the Tor- options, including two in onto International Film Festival the Lightbox. Buses leave was an event without a home. Le Germain Hotel at 1:45 pm That changed in 2010, when for the afternoon’s activities. the TIFF Bell Lightbox opened canteen 330 King St W in the Entertainment District. Casual spot with a varied, The 42-storey, mixed-use com- trend-conscious menu. $$$ plex includes 547,000 sq. ft. of luma 330 King St W flexible space in a five-storey Multicultural dishes and podium, with the 373-unit great street views. $$$ Festival Tower condominium fred’s not here 321 King above. The podium, facing St W Lively neighbourhood King Street, houses five cine- steak and pizza joint. $$ mas, TIFF’s administrative milagro 5 Mercer St offices, a film reference library, Authentic Mexican cuisine, and galleries. Its dramatic extensive tequila list. $$ rooftop terrace was inspired by pai 18 Duncan St Northern Godard’s 1963 film Contempt. Thai menu, casual setting. $$ 8 Fall 2016 LEW Guide Thorncliffe Park today and in 1960 If you’re a film festival in and, in 1975, provincial rent need of a prominent site, who control. Building owners you gonna call? Director and neglected maintenance, and pr0ducer Ivan Reitman (yes, for 40 years, private rental he directed the original Ghost- construction nosedived. busters). His parents, post-war In the 1980s climate of fed- immigrants and Holocaust sur- eral high-immigration policy vivors from Czechoslovakia, and gentrification of inner city had purchased a property on houses, immigrants began King Street in 1960, operating settling in the now-affordable a car wash there. The Reitman tower clusters, including Thorn- family donated the land to cliffe Park.