[Snark]

A few things to mention:

- All of the renderings in the presentation are nothing more than ideas. It is likely that none of the new buildings as rendered will actually be constructed as they appear in the renderings (if they get built at all).

- The new city hall is the green glass building at the forks.

- Most of the sites shown are currently underutilized public lands. There are other privately owned sites downtown that could develop at any time independent of this plan.

- Most of what is shown is private residential developments on public lands. The two exceptions are Farhi-held lands, which is of interest. There is half a billion dollars worth of private residential/retail development shown. Will the investors and developers come and build on these sites? A big question.

- Don't get too hung up on the beach. It's just a bold and intentionally unorthodox concept designed to show that the planning team wants to do something big on the waterfront and that's the key message. The final waterfront feature will likely end up being something very different.

- Because these are mostly just ideas presented, not all things shown will likely come to pass (such as the bridges over the river at Queen, and Wellington, being replaced with cable-stayed structures). The best bet for short-term action is Western getting the current city hall/Cooper square/Centennial Hall site and the City building a new city hall at the forks along with the waterfront feature. Even this is not a slam-dunk though and there will be a battle to get this passed. IMO, if that alone happened it would be huge enough.

-The important take-away from this presentation is the signalling of a paradigm shift. Basically, the "progressives" led by the mayor are saying that the City needs to "go big or go home" in all sorts of new and exciting ways. If they manage to win the day, things could get very exciting very fast.

- The burning question in my mind however is if the Dundas Steak House will be any good?