Paula Virany
Is it the Manhattanization of Toronto or the Strip Mall-ization of Toronto?

Cadillac-Fairview's plan is to destroy all heritage buildings on the site. It would be illegal for them to do that, however the Ford government passed legislation that allows destruction of heritage buildings via MZO's (a very aggressive, undemocratic approach.) It led to public demonstrations when the government moved to destroy the Foundries Building. Luckily demonstrators stopped that.

There are three beautiful old brick buildings on the East Harbour site. They are the Unilever building, 433 Eastern and the old Consumers' Gas company building at 419 Eastern. These buildings must be kept intact or incorporated into the new design. It is the history of a city that gives it character, charm and ultimately liveability.

Policy makers often explain that Toronto is going through “Manhattanization” i.e. it is becoming a large, dense city. This is accurate, however one of the reasons that NYC is so fantastic is that it's FULL of gorgeous historical buildings, such as the old brownstones (many are now condos) Greenwich Village, the Meat Packing district etc. All these add beauty and charm to NYC.

If Toronto keeps levelling all its heritage buildings this will not be Manhattanization. It will be a soulless mess.

Can Cadillac Fairview serve our great city and country and keep the heritage buildings? Isn’t that their civic duty?

Will these buildings be left intact or be incorporated into the design? As lobbies, parts of buildings or facades?

Tony Whitaker
Good luck with that, indeed. 65 storey residential towers with a large component of 1 bedrooms for investors and Airbnb landlords is not what East Harbour should be all about.

Rob Hatton
Good luck with that. They are going 10 - 20 stories higher to squeeze in the extra residential units. Maybe there will be red brick planters.

Rob Hatton
Cassidy.. I get you. When theEast Harbour transit hub (your tax dollars) was planned it was for union station east - a financial district hub serving land zoned for employment-only by the city. There are 300 acres of residential available one block south. Adding residential to east harbour (cad Fairview still says they will build the full office too) is an $800m profit gift to the developer - they paid for office-only land. And it is an added density burden on the community (traffic, etc). What do we get in return? Ask mr. Ford but I bet he gets paid first. I agree it will likely be sterile, because that what business does.

Erin Atkinson
The subway should be underground

Eli D
It's so true, everything you said. They don't care, they are just here to make a profit and it is likely that all of these comments are going to be ignored how they usually are. And we are the bad guys whose voices are brushed under the table because we "oppose the development". I don't oppose anything, but I am tired of seeing all of these issues about design and culture and affordability being swept under the rug. No developer is able to sit back and say their development has flaws because they realistically are just there in the interim following orders. We're just thinking several boxy blue/green glass towers with an ok spandrel, nothing too out of the box, nothing too progressive.. okay, yep boss, whatever you say... and the trend repeats itself. Canary wharf, Hudson yards, south core they all follow the same principle of being a corporate and soulless lacklustre downtown. What is staggering is that even after designing all of these districts, there is countless criticism that Cadillac Fairview or Adamson never learn from. Multiple articles, videos and comments on websites are proof that people tend to stay away from these kinds of developments. Countless people have asked about arts, quality and forward-thinking design, but nope, the renderings are bland as usual. It's tasteless and we'll just have to sit back and watch the developer go with what they know, resisting the urge to challenge the binary and create a memorable district known by the world.