John Barber’s article in the Globe the other day compared the Redpath Sugar plant to the Island Airport as a major stumbling block on the road to waterfront revitalization. Since the column is in the subscriber section of the paper I’ll post a few highlights here:
People say that nothing is happening on the waterfront — and they’re mostly right. Despite a smattering of local improvements, huge tracts remain amazingly derelict — most prominently the parking lots and old sheds of the central waterfront east of Yonge Street.
But government isn’t alone to blame. An arrangement with private enterprise has done its share in retarding progress.
An overdue renaissance to the west remains paralyzed in utero due to the all-important need to shuttle a few dozen people a day back and forth to Ottawa.
Across the bay, the regulations that Redpath Sugar lobbied for maintain the long tradition of keeping all neighbouring development at bay.
In addition to their roles in retarding a waterfront renaissance, the island airport and the sugar plant share one significant characteristic: They are uneconomic.
If the free market had its way, both facilities would have gone the same way as the flour mills, shipyards, warehouses and foundries that once crowded the same shores.
Only political friction keeps them alive.
Although it has suffered none of the bad publicity richly earned by the Toronto Port Authority and the island airport, the Redpath plant is another prominent dog in the manger — albeit one that offers a wonderful view down Jarvis Street when there’s a ship unloading, and which will be missed when it closes, as it surely will.
Its inevitable end will mark the final demise of Toronto’s industrial waterfront. Once Redpath closes, there will be no more foreign cargo ships inching dramatically through the Eastern Gap on a summer’s day. There will be no more Harbour.
And a little later in the article:
The big difference between Redpath and the island airport is that nobody will miss the latter when it goes. But neither escapes the deathwatch. Unless there is no limit to waterfront absurdity, there can’t be any future in using that much prime land for the trivial purpose of allegedly saving a handful of people a few minutes in the air.
If there was a real demand for the service, Porter Airlines wouldn’t be struggling along with half-empty planes on two domestic routes, heavily dependent on government subsidies and patronage. The island airport would be a real going concern. But it hasn’t been that for ages, and it still isn’t. It’s as obsolete as the sugar refinery across the bay, and like it sustained by politics alone.
The Redpath plant poses an interesting question for waterfront revitalization. It’s hard to argue that the plant isn’t an eyesore, and it does cut the city off from the lake at for a rather long stretch. On the other hand, it’s a link to the lakeshore’s industrial heritage, and may be one of those parts of the city’s history we regret demolishing later down the road.
Image from tristanhomer’s flickr page.
26 comments
I could argue it’s not an eyesore. In the courtyard looking up at the sugar chutes there is a specatacular vista the equal of Erich Mendelsohn’s images of the Ford Rouge Plant which is being reimagined into an environmentally friendly production facility. We will regret its passing if this building comes down. Short of building condos what good would freeing up this land do? Create a larger barren wasteland?
I don’t think the plant is an eyesore, although it can certainly use some improvement. There’s really no reason why the plant can’t be bypassed with a trail along the water’s edge and a lift or swing bridge over the end of the slip. The bridge could be raised to allow ships into or out of the slip, and would otherwise be lowered to allow the recreational trail to run along the water. This is basically the same thing that they’re planning for other areas of the waterfront with existing buildings.
If the Redpath plant has to be torn down to accommodate the waterfront plans, then so do the Harbour Castle, Harbour Square, the silos at the western and eastern ends of Queens Quay, and pretty much everything else south of Queens Quay.
John Barber is full of bile towards the airport and it was predictable he would link the two – a number of my work colleagues will certainly miss Porter if it goes. The Island is not an impediment to the many waterfront projects that are currently stalled all along the waterfront. As it is, the existing park system is hugely undercapitalised – I seem to recall a figure of $400m in outstanding maintenance?
As for Redpath – getting rid of the train tracks into it might deal with some issues about getting light rail into the portlands. Ian’s point about the industrial heritage of Toronto is surely as valid for Redpath as it is for the Hearn if not more so.
That said, Barber and his ilk fail to realise that people *work* in places like Redpath, that their work is as valid as any journo.
If people in this city had to choose between sugar and the CTVglobemedia behemoth he works for, he might be out of a job. Clean up and develop derelict sites by all means but let’s not drive the few industrial jobs left in the 416 away “just ’cause!”
I do find this a bit of struggle in my brain. When I’m riding my bike along Queens Quay I hate having to get on the road as part of the trail network and coming from the east Redpath is the first roadblock.
On the other hand, I love the feeling of the industrial building there. I don’t find it to be an eyesore, I enjoy the smell of the sugar being processed and yes, the ships coming and going provide endless fascination.
I’d have say that I think I really would miss the place if it was demolished. Perhaps I’m feeling a bit of nostalgia. One of my first trips to Toronto as a kid was to the Redpath Museum and to see Toronto Star printing press.
Redpath used to be great to look at from the Gardiner because of the whale wall painted on it. The thing that ruined it is the big Loblaws that was built infront of it so that you can only see the mural from Queens Quay now unfortunately
A huge sugar factory sits on our waterfront and this isn’t a problem? Heritage shouldn’t be used as an excuse to keep this embarrassment on the waterfront.
If the choice is between a beautiful open space to the lake and a sugar factory, i’ll take the open space. If the purpose of our waterfront is to create economic growth, why not build some more factories to create more minimum wage jobs between Cherry Street and Bathurst?
Does Barber present any evidence to back up his assertion that Redpath is “uneconomic” and “obsolete” and would disappear “if the free market had its way”? I’m not a subscriber so I’m not able to read his whole column, but this seems like a strange argument on the face of it. Sugar is a necessary commodity and it has to be made somewhere. Can anyone explain what he’s talking about?
Redpath is listed on the Inventory of Heritage Properties by the former City of Toronto in 1984. It can’t be demolished without Council’s decision.
I agree with hinley –
To pretend the factory is a thing of beauty or necessity to the waterfront is a stretch. It’s an eyesore – whether its rendered historic or not.
This building was also a finalist for a Massey Medal for Architecture in 1961. I am also of two minds about it, and wonder if it could not be incorporated into a revitalized waterfront in some form or another, like the cement plant on Granville Island.
Maybe it’s the Windsor working-class upbringing talking, but how easily it seems folks can dismiss a place where people work, that has been there for a long long time, is worrying me a bit. An eyesore or not, isn’t this like new condo owners at King and Tecumseth complaining about the stench from the abattoir ruining the neighbourhood? This *is* Toronto, and we have to live with it, until it goes away on it’s own, like we have to live with the ravines, the St. Clair/Davenport hill, the lake or some other feature that’s been here forever.
Good design and planning can work around anything, especially a relatively low-impact industry like Redpath.
The inconsistency of John Barber’s argument about the market boggles my mind. If the market had its way, the Mirvish group, the Canon, and of course Blue Man Group would provide about the only live professional theater in town; the others, disconnected from the Canada Council feeding tube, would long ago have vanished. If the market had its way, we would have few if any books of Canadian poetry or fiction, a few Canadian book publishers beside the obvious Harlequin. And, of course, if the market had its way, we would have nothing South of Front Street but a wall of condos, with access to the water restricted to those who can pay.
But in this case, allowing the market its whims would have even worse consequences than a cultural desert or a wall of condos. Marine transport offers the lowest carbon emissions of any bulk shipping; indeed, it offers us the only zero-emissions shipping option we now have. If we ever hope to have a sustainable city, we must not kill the port. That means, among other things that we have to keep a reasonable amount of industry along the waterfront.
I have no issues with Redpath. I am always fascinated with the offloading process (likely influenced by the month I lived in Rotterdam).
Now something on the landscape that needs to be altered (the media landscape) is CTVglobemedia…but don’t expect Mr. Barber to bite the hand that feeds him.
I take Shawn’s point.
A compromise position: why not let Redpath stay, as long as it makes the process of making sugar visible? Maybe one wall of the factory could be made of glass. It’s got to be interesting to watch – all that chomping and boiling and sifting, not to mention ships coming and going.
On a tour of the harbour the Redpath sugar factory is noted for being the only industry allowed to remain along the Harbourfront as it did not pollute the local environment. The only two by-products of the sugar processing was steam and heated clean water. Apparently the plant takes in lake water, cleans it for use in processing and whatever does not escape as steam gets put back in the lake. (There’s a joke that if you bring a cup and a tea bag you can make your own tea with the discharged water!)
As for appearance, perhaps something can be done to shed its eyesore image to others. Clean up the surrounding property or perhaps some decent landscaping. More murals along the west side of the plant perhaps? I don’t know about the cost-issues of making the walls out of glass, but the plant does offer free tours to the public for those who are curious.
you’re right Shawn. i by no means support getting rid of it before its time. i say rid of it when and if its no longer being used. To me, it’s merely a stretch to have it preserved after use on the grounds of some kind of “historical beauty certification”
I’m surprised that people are so quick to dismiss the importance of this building after Redpath moves its processing facilities. Toronto’s waterfront history is rooted in industrial uses, the remaining remnants need to be preserved and linked to ensure that the past is represented. It makes no sense to me to toss Toronto entire waterfront heritage in the garbage because it doesn’t mix well with our new pristine residential dream, that seems like a suburban way of thinking (i.e. lets get rid of all the industrial buildings and name the streets after them.) What if we turned Redpath into Toronto’s version of the Tate Modern? Any city can have a new pristine waterfront designed by the best “taste-of-the-month” st-architects, but only Toronto has Redpath on its doorstep.
Bobio, then that same logic ought to have applied to the Gooderham works just to the NE. Instead, it became the Distillery District. Get my drift? Sometimes, so-called “historical beauty certification†can do wonders.
I guess the problem for you is that Redpath doesn’t meet your (or hinley’s) criteria of “beauty”–but there’s been enough posts in this thread that indicate a strongly-founded countervailing POV, and one that should definitely be accounted for in future plans for the site. (Likewise with the original Island Airport terminal building, and maybe a lucky hangar or two–none of which should be stigmatized simply because the present function is “undesirable”.)
Cities are complex places. Maybe “the choice is between a beautiful open space to the lake and a sugar factory” is a bit like the choice between James Taylor and the Troggs–and yeah, beautiful space is nice, but you have realize where Lester Bangs was coming from in declaring “James Taylor Marked For Death”…
The plant is no more of an eyesore than the forest of crappy condo towers that would doubtless replace it.
As far as I’m concerned almost every building between bathurst and jarvis along queens quay is an eyesore. At the redpath plant has some functional beauty for those of us who are into such things as well as historical relevance.
I am all for a mixed use waterfront, and if an industrial aspect is economical for the company then let them stay. I would completely support some sort of community interaction at the plant as Mr Hound suggests above.
miles> I think the condo’s/Harbour Castle between Spadina (or York) and Yonge are the ones that give the area a bad rap. The ones west of Spadina, to Bathurst and a little beyond, are quite nice and all on the north side of Queens Quay.
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I think glass walls at Redpath would be great. If that power plant ever becomes real, glass walls there would also at least give us something to look at.
Adam – yeah, i got your drift. I’m sticking to mine, you stick to yours. To each their own.
I’m generally glad to hear validity from both sides here. Healthy debate and such input are where great ideas,design and creation begin.
For twenty years all I could think when seeing the sugar plant was “YAY! Sugar slides!!”
The place can really invoke a child’s imagination.
A “forest of crappy condo towers” would be a lot worse.
There really needs to be height restrictions on new waterfront buildings.
I walk past the Redpath sugar factory along Queen’s Quay en route to my job each day and personally I kind of like the building. I just wish they would spruce it up a little…you know, a new coat of paint, some touchups on the whale mural (why not paint the entire building with a mural about sugar making, or a history of Toronto’s waterfront?), they could stand to plant a tree or three at least. Or at least water the shrubs that are already there.
If they had to close down the sugar factory, I think they should keep the building up and use it for something equally productive, or perhaps even more so. Maybe a community centre or an event hall, or an artist’s colony (I would love to see something like Granville Island in Toronto)
One thing I don’t like about that particular stretch of Queen’s Quay quite honestly is the lack of a decent sidewalk on either side of the road from about Lower Jarvis (after the Loblaws), until that small sideroad before the LCBO. You have either the railroad tracks in front of the factory on one side, or a poorly laid stretch of tarmac that feels like leftovers from the last time they repaved Queen’s Quay on the other side.
For the record though, I absolutely hate the stench that factory belches out. Especially since it rises from the sewers along Queen’s Quay all the way to Yonge Street and sticks in your clothing and your hair so you keep smelling it long after you’ve left the area. I’ve actually arrived at work nauseous from the smell. At least it helped me lose weight by killing my sugar cravings!
If the US embargo on Cuba is ever lifted, the plant will probably be shut down in favour of a closer plant in Miami.
I’ll tell you what the eye sore is, it’s the highrise buildings that keep popping up east of Spadina to Yonge and from Front St. south to the Queens Quay. There isn’t much down at the harbourfront to attract anyone. What would have been nice along the Queens Quay strip would have been lowrise buildings and little shops like the beaches, cobble stone walkways, cafe’s etc.. Also the building on the south side between Reese and York next to the Radisson where the Bamboo use to be, sitting empty for what. This could be used for a Market Place with several vendors selling their goods, like a mini St. Lawrence market or something.
They are doing a nice job along the lakefront there but the street is dead and always will be, nothing to see, nothing to do.
I’ve gone down to the waterfront just to see it. My uncle is a sailor and he once came in on a ship from Brazil, so I got to behind the scenes and the industrial scale is incredible. I wouldn’t go down to see some bland condos (i.e. Cityplace). People here love monochromatic glass, but once the shine disappears it’s boring. Infuse it with some colour like the Europeans do, and we won’t want to knock it 50 years later, then in another 50 years say “too bad they demolished that one”. Things like this have to be integrated into the waterfront.