933 - 5Th Ave | 34.14m | 9s | HomeSpace | IBI Group

Surrealplaces

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My god. Please no. The materials look terrible in the render, can only imagine how bad the end product would be in reality. West DT has too many facepalms already, we don't need another one.
 
I kind of like it. My personal selfish reasons are, my place currently has a view that contains the ugly great blank wall of the neighbouring York apartments. ANYTHING will be better than that. Plus, given the lower height, I don't lose any other skyline views.

It is not a 10/10, but I think we need to keep in mind the intended use, and likely corresponding budget constraints that use comes with.
 
I feel like using one or two colours and materials (vs. 5 or 6) would have been cheaper. A minimalist facade would look better than this any day and would be much cheaper unquestionably. They tried way too hard to make it look hip and cool and it just ended up terrible.
 
There is a tender that has just been released for a 9 floor residential building on the empty lot at 935 5 Ave SW. It calls for 74 units and it appears that Home Space is behind it.
 
Awesome news. Plain, a bit fugly, but highly functional in a great location.

Question for the crew:
Is it an impossibility given current planning regulations and building practices to build "nicer" main floors when attempting retail? Almost all new developments with pedestrian-oriented retail go with these large, high-ceiling, cold, glassy looks, with little - if any - attention to the ground floor. All floorplates are ginormous, nearly all sit vacant for a good while.

Reminds me a lot of this Strong Towns article which suggest recent retail space failures on the mismatching of motives (e.g. I only care about the residential units, the planning office forced me to have retail) and only interested in a chain tenant, which are hard to attract but worth the wait.

Any thoughts? It isn't this development in particular - most of our new towers with retail have this same style.
 
Honestly all this needs to make it acceptable is one less colour on the facade. As it is, it is repulsive.
 

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