{"id":7667,"date":"2009-11-09T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2009-11-09T14:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=7667"},"modified":"2013-01-21T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T19:39:11","slug":"john-lorinc-a-little-circus-a-bit-of-dough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/11\/09\/john-lorinc-a-little-circus-a-bit-of-dough\/","title":{"rendered":"JOHN LORINC: A Little Circus, A Bit of Dough"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The phrase for Toronto should be “fourth time, lucky.”<\/p>\n

Thanks to some form of cosmic serendipity, we are indeed lucky to have bagged the 2015 Pan Am Games, as opposed to the 1996 and\/or 2008 Summer Olympics, plus an Expo that would have been a boondoggle of epic proportions.<\/p>\n

By comparison to the phantasmorgic spectacle of the Olympics, the Pan-Am event is appealingly modest, with a minimal risk of screw-up. Yet there’s a potentially enormous payoff for waterfront revitalization, provided the City plays its cards right.<\/p>\n

The 2,100-unit athlete’s village, in the West Donlands, represents the development anchor the waterfront so desperately needed, and not just for that region beyond the hoardings east of the Distillery District.<\/p>\n

By happy circumstance, the village units will come onto the market when Toronto’s economy should again be on full boil, and I’m hoping the City’s planning staff recognizes the need to do everything they can to direct non-Pan Am investment capital to the area as a means of creating a critical mass of development activity there.<\/p>\n

If the City and Waterfront Toronto can get their acts together, the athlete’s village should also become the carrot that lures mixed-used development to the area south of Queen’s Quay — already the site of the Corus headquarters, a new campus for George Brown College and a recently launched park at the foot of Sherbourne.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Waterfront Toronto will need to put the pause button on its other ventures, devoting all its resources to streamlining East Bayfront water’s edge improvements, the construction of local LRT lines and great pedestrian linkages up to the West Donlands.<\/p>\n

Which begs the age-old question: whither the Gardiner?<\/p>\n

It’s an especially timely issue, given David Miller’s new career plans. He’s long said he wants to knock down the portion east of Yonge and replace it with a broad, at-grade boulevard. Council approved the terms of reference for an environmental assessment<\/a> in the summer, and the document is now with provincial officials.<\/p>\n

The city’s procedural timeline indicates a decision in 2011, which means there’s going to be a huge temptation for Miller to press the province to fast track the plan with an eye to winning council approval for a capital-L legacy project before he leaves office.<\/p>\n

I think it would be the wrong thing to do.<\/p>\n

Miller should allow the Gardiner take-down scheme — a problematic venture in many ways — to die on the vine, and focus instead on getting the rest of the Pan-Am preparations right in his remaining year. That means pushing hard to get the Union Station renovation well underway while nailing down the development east of Yonge.<\/p>\n

Rather than delve into a possibly futile council battle over the Gardiner, Miller should use the opportunity afforded by the Games — plus the remaining pennies in his political piggy bank — to fight for funding for the Scarborough-Malvern LRT, which is meant to extend out to the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus (UTSC).<\/p>\n

And it will be a fight, as became evident Friday when just-announced<\/a> mayoral candidate George Smitherman threw water on Miller’s suggestion<\/a> that the project be accelerated, given UTSC’s role as a major swim venue for the event.<\/p>\n

Downtown, the new “Water Table” art installation<\/a> on the underside of the Gardiner offers further proof that the expressway, as an urban object, can be transformed, as architects John van Nostrand and Calvin Brook have” argued since 2003<\/a>.
\nBetter that a much-needed rapid transit line to a remote corner of the city be David Miller’s parting shot.<\/p>\n

photo by Wylie Poon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phrase for Toronto should be “fourth time, lucky.” Thanks to some form of cosmic serendipity, we are indeed lucky to have bagged the 2015 Pan Am Games, as opposed to the 1996 and\/or 2008 Summer Olympics, plus an Expo that would have been a boondoggle of epic proportions. By comparison to the phantasmorgic spectacleContinue reading “JOHN LORINC: A Little Circus, A Bit of Dough”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13575,8623,6397,13574,425,790,6130,6245,1030,2517,2469,129,13576,316,89,1048,2565,19,270,1047,8263],"class_list":["post-7667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-2008-summer-olympics","tag-athlete","tag-calvin-brook","tag-corus-headquarters","tag-david-miller","tag-distillery-district","tag-george-brown-college","tag-george-smitherman","tag-john-lorinc","tag-john-van-nostrand","tag-mayoral-candidate","tag-pan-am-games","tag-political-piggy-bank","tag-queen","tag-scarborough","tag-scarborough-campus","tag-the-olympics","tag-toronto","tag-university-of-toronto","tag-university-of-torontos","tag-wylie-poon"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJOHN LORINC: A Little Circus, A Bit of Dough - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2009\/11\/09\/john-lorinc-a-little-circus-a-bit-of-dough\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JOHN LORINC: A Little Circus, A Bit of Dough - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The phrase for Toronto should be “fourth time, lucky.” Thanks to some form of cosmic serendipity, we are indeed lucky to have bagged the 2015 Pan Am Games, as opposed to the 1996 and\/or 2008 Summer Olympics, plus an Expo that would have been a boondoggle of epic proportions. 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