Tuesday’s Headlines

9 comments

1. I’m not sure how I feel about the stacked arena plan. If they can pull it off, wow, pretty neat. The Portlands should be filled with lowrise and midrise office and residential buildings anyway, so maybe an arena that looks like one is ok.

   On the other hand, I am still doubtful this will actually proceed. No one in their right mind stacks other uses on top of area rooftops — the loading for the additional dead load (ice, extra floor thickness and structure) and live load (people) is probably two and half times what you would normally be designing for (snow). It’s going to be one super-expensive superstructure.

   I would have preferred a true mixed-use plan that had the rinks at second-floor level but put restaurants, retail, parking, offices and other uses underneath them. The most urban waterfront rink in the world is probably Chelsea Piers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Piers) and this model could have worked just fine in Toronto.

2. Re: Rental property splits neighbours

   Charge him the same property tax as Hotels pay, and his business would quickly disappear.

3. I’m very curious about the stacked arena plan as well – how do you engineer the structure of something so bulky, with no central pillar supports? It would all have to be cantilevered from the edges, a tricky prospect for one ice rink, let alone three elevated ones…

4. Kevin, it’s just a question of trusses. Like the roof over a regular arena, but flat instead of arched and carrying much more load. Therefore the trusses get thicker and heavier and more expensive. The ceiling heights in these rinks may not be quite what people are used to due to the lower-hanging trusses.

   The good part it that there are no central column point loads coming down in the middle of the spans, as there would be if you, say, put hotel rooms above.

   Closest parallel I can think of, on a smaller scale, are stacked high school gyms. You occasionally see this in urban high schools (Crescent School in Toronto is one example).

5. It looks great in the rendering but there are so many issues in terms of urban design like how it will meet the street and the shipping channel.

   Also, the sun warm the building more with the glass facade (unevenly, too). I hope it won’t affect ice quality.

6. For the multi-level rink, I’d like to know what the soil is like. I’d guess it’s sediment a long way down at the base of the Don, which means either a wide concrete platform or deep pilings: expensive either way.

7. Re: Condo Naming of 5-7 Esplanade

   I encourage you to visit this site and vote for your favourite name! My submission is listed below.

   O’Keefe Tower:
   This name was chosen as a tribute to one of our City’s most famous and generous philanthropists, who was largely responsible for the construction of the O’Keefe Centre (Now Sony Centre) next door. I believe the legacy of the O’Keefe Brewing Company should be preserved in this block so that Torontonians will remember the great contribution they made to our great City for generations to come.
   http://www.nameourcondo.com/entry/135

8. Or just build two rinks (not stacked) at the Portlands and build two somewhere else in the city.

9. Re: Farmers take aims at Liberals on solar subsidy cut

   The OPA reponds: http://www.powerauthority.on.ca/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID=7288