They recently banned alcohol on the rooftop so it's very "tame" now. That being said, before it was banned, I never experienced rowdy parties. They definitely did happen before though, just not that frequently.
This seems like a recipe to me for making it needlessly hard to get to the ctrain. I wish one side it was raised to the level of the c-train station, kind of like how London at Heritage has one side with a "ground" 4 stories higher than the other.
The area around 14th and 17th seems to be heating up a bit recently. The Arlington in the NW corner of that intersection, the nearby Scarboro 17, the recently completed 1515 and then this.
Roads in most developing countries don't have as much exposure to salt (hotter climates) or freeze-thaw events. Those both put lots of strain on the materials.
I've heard one of the issues with using brick in western provinces is a lack of skilled bricklayers. Plenty of them in Ontario, but few here. Might be a chicken and egg kind of situation!
I agree on the need for a new arena, but I fail to understand how North American cities have all seemed to fall into the trap of using public money to subsidize arenas that a large percentage of the populace doesn't even use.
It hasn't seemed to be as much of a case in Calgary, but I've read some articles that street level light rail/streetcars get political buy-in easier because they're "fancier" modes of transportation.
That being said, the streetcars in Toronto which have shared right of ways with cars tend to...