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  #181  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2010, 9:24 PM
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Everyone should not forget that the commercial-space needs for large companies has also changed dramatically in the last 35 years since Toronto's tall office building boom of the mid-70's. Since then, the computer has taken over and it has had a huge impact on the staffing requirements and therefore square footage a large company actually needs.

35 years ago there would have still been steno pools filled with banks of secretaries and typists, or order departments staffed with tens of telephone operators, huge mail rooms with messenger boys, and many more support staff. Back in the day, accounting, including payroll, was always one of a large company's biggest group of employees. Plus vast filing rooms with every piece of paper a huge company could generate.

Today a lot of that is done by computer and is managed digitally. One person on a desktop with access to a database, can execute the work that a whole payroll department once did. Or more often than not, that is all done by another company and they just send the data via computer, therefore having no payroll department at all. Add to this the growing number of telecommuters, who never require permanent office space, you have greatly reduced the number of employees any given company needs. Consequently reducing the square footage required.

All this means the developer of a Supertall has to convince more anchor tenants to make a project viable than they did before.
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  #182  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2010, 9:52 PM
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Mike is right in regards to the banks buildings of the seventies being trophies unlike the towers of today. Still, companies are still choosing a downtown that is ever increasingly running out of ready to build space. The banks space requirements are much larger than what they were 40 years ago and have been growing by at least a 100,000 square feet a year over the past decade. We aren't there yet however, building a supertall to have a Bay Street address for profit rather than just ego is within the realm of future possibilities.
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  #183  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2010, 10:17 PM
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Originally Posted by Cambridgite View Post
As my one friend put it "No one wants to stay in Scarborough. The only reason you stick around in Scarborough indefinitely is because you've done nothing with your life."

But that's just mostly what I've heard/seen. I don't live there.
Go tell that to people who live in $3 million dollar homes in South Scarborough.
Scarborough has many high profile people. One of the old CEO's of CIBC used to live in my subdivision. A neighbour down the street was a high up manager with IBM. And I live in a regular subdivision.
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  #184  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2010, 10:19 PM
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Originally Posted by Traynor View Post
Everyone should not forget that the commercial-space needs for large companies has also changed dramatically in the last 35 years since Toronto's tall office building boom of the mid-70's. Since then, the computer has taken over and it has had a huge impact on the staffing requirements and therefore square footage a large company actually needs.
I am not sure that plays as big a role as you may think. If that was the case, Asian cities would not be building huge towers.

It just has to do with our development over the past 20 years, which has favoured suburban low rise office instead of tall signature buildings.

It is not like the short office buildings in the burbs are any smaller than the office towers. They just are spread out instead of up. So companies are still using a lot of space.

We just have to change our priorities again to like tall office buildings
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  #185  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2010, 10:26 PM
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People in south Scarborough are probably like, "I live in the Beach" or maybe "I live on the Bluffs" Honestly do you think anyone in Guildwood or the Bluffs considers themselves Scarbarians? Just a technicality that they are included in the "General" Scarborough population. Anything south of Kingston Road needs to be disqualified.
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  #186  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2010, 11:07 PM
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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
Go tell that to people who live in $3 million dollar homes in South Scarborough.
Scarborough has many high profile people. One of the old CEO's of CIBC used to live in my subdivision. A neighbour down the street was a high up manager with IBM. And I live in a regular subdivision.
Yeah, but those neighborhoods are the exceptions to the rule. Overall, it's seen as a somewhat low-brow area of the GTA, as are parts of North York, Etobicoke, and even some areas in Mississauga, Brampton, and Oshawa. Downtown used to be low-brow, but it's far from that now.

But that's okay. As much as cities are all trying to attract the "creative class", most of the populace isn't creative class and doesn't care about that kind of stuff. Places like Scarborough are necessary, because normal working class people need to live somewhere too.

For what it's worth, if I were to get a job in downtown Toronto in the next year, I'd probably look at renting in Scarborough, somewhere near the end of the subway line, simply because it's more affordable. Although I'd probably look into Etobicoke or North York first.
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  #187  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2010, 3:19 AM
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Originally Posted by caltrane74 View Post
People in south Scarborough are probably like, "I live in the Beach" or maybe "I live on the Bluffs" Honestly do you think anyone in Guildwood or the Bluffs considers themselves Scarbarians? Just a technicality that they are included in the "General" Scarborough population. Anything south of Kingston Road needs to be disqualified.
Hahah, what a hideous name.
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  #188  
Old Posted Nov 23, 2010, 3:24 AM
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Better than 'The Scarberish' I guess.
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  #189  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2010, 1:18 PM
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Is a supertall 300m or 1000ft?
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  #190  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2010, 1:58 PM
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^Both in this forum. I completely disagree with this arbitrary choice of two standards that are different in height. Either make it 304.8m and 1,000 feet or 300m and 984' 3". The fact that a building qualifies in part due to the measurement system is stupid.

I'm not sure when Canada will get a supertall. It might be another 20 years before it happens. My odds-on-favorites are:
1 Toronto/Mississauga
2 Niagara Falls
3 Hamilton
4 Calgary
5 one of the outer satellites in Vancouver
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  #191  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2010, 2:04 PM
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^ I'd put Calgary directly after the GTA.
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  #192  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2010, 2:29 PM
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I'd move Calgary ahead of Hamilton..
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  #193  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 11:23 AM
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^ I'd put Calgary directly after the GTA.
Maybe. It's tough to tell, but I believe Calgary's shadow laws will hamper getting something in the super-tall category for a while. I believe 250m to 270m is probable for Calgary as the next tallest. I could be wrong, but hey it's a guess. I figure some crazy person with reasonable economics might be able to pull it off in Hamilton. It's no disrespect to Calgary, it's just a hunch. I figure Calgary will remain in the top-2 cities in Canada for developing tall buildings, but when talking one super-tall I'm not so sure.
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  #194  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 2:22 PM
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Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes View Post
Maybe. It's tough to tell, but I believe Calgary's shadow laws will hamper getting something in the super-tall category for a while. I believe 250m to 270m is probable for Calgary as the next tallest. I could be wrong, but hey it's a guess.
Despite those shadow laws there are LOTS of empty spots where a 300m building can go. Heck there are acres of parking lots along the CPR tracks on the south side of the CBD (our 3rd, 4th, and 5th tallest buildings reside just north of them on 9th avenue), and there are definitely prime spots of land in the middle of it that can easily accommodate a supertall with no problems.

Edit: A quick and dirty MSpaint to show some of the spots I'm talking about:



Edit: Obviously that nice spot in the middle would be best, but I believe that is the land that Imperial Oil owns. Everything we hear about any potential development is probably maximum floor plate size and probably not a supertall. We can always keep our fingers crossed though.

Last edited by Bigtime; Nov 26, 2010 at 4:03 PM.
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  #195  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 3:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes View Post
Maybe. It's tough to tell, but I believe Calgary's shadow laws will hamper getting something in the super-tall category for a while. I believe 250m to 270m is probable for Calgary as the next tallest. I could be wrong, but hey it's a guess. I figure some crazy person with reasonable economics might be able to pull it off in Hamilton. It's no disrespect to Calgary, it's just a hunch. I figure Calgary will remain in the top-2 cities in Canada for developing tall buildings, but when talking one super-tall I'm not so sure.
I was under the impression that Hamilton has a height restriction so towers don't block out the view of the Niagara Escarpment..
I could be wrong but that would be much more of an obstacle than shadowing restrictions.. Hell, even Toronto has shadowing and height restrictions.
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  #196  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 7:12 PM
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To add to Bigtime's post above, I've made up another image with some potential sites.



The River Pathway shadowing bylaw is already set in stone and is not going to change. I've also pointed out some other parks/plazas in downtown which do not currently have shadowing bylaws, but which under the Centre City Plan (which is now the basis for the direction of planning in the city core) were listed as being potentially protected by similar, if lower level, bylaws.

The most obvious site for a supertall currently is the one Bigtime pointed out, which Imperial Oil currently owns. The next ones would be just north of the CPR tracks, and then after that just south of the CPR tracks.

Of course, these are just sites where it might be allowable and are right now covered by surface parking. If someone is going to build a really tall tower, there are older and smaller buildings that might be worth knocking down.

And that's all besides the economics and the big "who would occupy this tower?" question.
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  #197  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 7:15 PM
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I forgot about the new courts parkade park directly south of the Imperial Oil lot. A supertall would be even better there with that park directly south of it.
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  #198  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 8:19 PM
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Mmmm... I would like Courts Park to be to YYCSupertall as Bryant Park is to BOMA.

Okay, maybe not the best comparison since the two are a half block apart...
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  #199  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 8:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Boris2k7 View Post
Mmmm... I would like Courts Park to be to YYCSupertall as Bryant Park is to BOMA.

Okay, maybe not the best comparison since the two are a half block apart...
Close enough comparison for my liking!

Could the FCC2 site handle a supertall? The original design was right at the 250m mark.

http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=4455
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  #200  
Old Posted Nov 26, 2010, 8:30 PM
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I don't think the shadowing bylaws would be a problem for the FCC2 site. It's a smaller site though, so a bit tougher to work with (and you would probably have to tear out the existing tower foundations under the site).
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Last edited by Boris2k7; Dec 9, 2010 at 9:02 PM.
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