An “integrated resort” at Exhibition Place

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So some councillors and lobbyists are talking casino again, with Exhibition Place as the preferred site. Except that they’ve adopted the grand euphemism of “integrated resort“:

Alan Feldman, senior vice-president of public affairs with MGM, said it could potentially invest $3- to $5-billion on an “integrated resort” in Toronto, which could include about 200,000-square-feet of casino space, 1,000 to 2,000 hotel rooms, 100,000-square-feet of restaurant space, plus entertainment venues.

[emphasis mine]

Sounds grand, but you can scratch Exhibition Place off the list of possible sites; politicians should check on their existing obligations before they go around trying to make new ones. Did you know that there’s already a hotel starting construction soon at Exhibition Place? It was approved in 2009. You may remember the mini-scandal about the contract.

According to my reading of the Letter Agreement between the City and HKHotels back in 2009, HKHotels gets a 49-year lease (plus two 25-year extensions) that gives them:

[…]the exclusive right to operate a hotel:
(i)
during the period commencing from the execution of the Lease and ending on the date which is fifteen (15) years after the Rent Commencement Date, within the whole of Exhibition Place; and
(ii)
during the remainder of the Initial Term, within the portion of Exhibition Place which is located to the east of Ontario Drive.

[“Exclusivity,” page 9 of the PDF]

So no additional hotels (AKA “integrated resorts”) anywhere at Exhibition Place for 15 years, and no additional hotels east of Ontario Drive (between the Better Living Centre and BMO Field) for 34 years after that. An “integrated resort” built 15 years from now would have to destroy buildings or greenspace on the western half of Exhibition Place, and that would probably be even less popular than just tearing up a parking lot.

Ned Hanlan on the move

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Ned Hanlan on the move

The Ned Hanlan, the tugboat beside Stanley Barracks at Exhibition Place, has been pulled out of its dry berth and will soon be moved, appropriately enough, to a new display at Hanlan’s Point. The middle of a parking lot at Exhibition Place may seem like an odd place for a tugboat, but it actually used to make sense: Stanley Barracks was home to Toronto’s Marine Museum until it was moved to Harbourfront in 2000 and then promply shut down as a cost-saving measure.

Ned Hanlan on the move

No, I will not obey my signal

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Dumb pedestrian signal

Dumb pedestrian signal

It’s hard to believe that in 2012, the City of Toronto persists in installing new pedestrian signals on sidewalks across the top of T-intersections. This one, installed as part of the signalization earlier this year of the intersection of Laird and Esandar Drives in Leaside, has also been noted by the Fixer for its perplexing lights that face the two quiet driveways at the top of the T.

It’s not the waste of money or phony “war on” anything that bothers me here, it’s the fact that such a useless signal represents the current standard for pedestrian infrastructure in 2012. City planners and traffic engineers hear me now: a pedestrian on a sidewalk always has the right of way over any kind of traffic that crosses that sidewalk. Period. A vehicle coming out of a driveway should never have the right of way over a pedestrian on the sidewalk.

As for the “pedestrians obey your signals” sign, here’s a hint for the City: any time you feel obligated to put up a sign or signal, and then another sign instructing people to obey the first one, you’re doing it wrong.

(A similar signal installation was noted by Vic Gedris back in 2007.)

Park mail

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In an article in Spacing a few years ago (“Letters to a park,” Spacing, Winter/Spring 2007), Jessica Johnston lamented not being able to send mail to her favourite park. Although many parks have street addresses, Canada Post told her that “Parks aren’t customers … We can’t deliver to the third oak tree.” Well, she might have more luck getting that letter to the third oak tree now that there’s an actual mailbox tacked onto a signpost in Sunnybrook Park:

Mailbox in Sunnybrook Park

Despite riding by here quite regularly, I’d never noticed this mailbox until I saw a Canada Post truck pull up and deliver a load of mail to it this morning. A city employee who happened to be passing by while I was taking pictures said that it’s a shared mailbox for Sunnybrook Stables and the city works yard tucked in at the north end of the park below the sports fields. Canada Post won’t deliver mail all the way up the road and it’s too dangerous to stop at a mailbox placed at high-speed Leslie Street, so they reached a compromise with this mailbox located almost 200 metres inside the park where there’s room to safely stop and turn the mail truck around without having to reverse up the roadway. He also said that this particular box is new, having replaced the original wooden one that was installed in the same location last September. And I do remember seeing the old wooden one on this post, but never twigged to the possibility that it was for mail delivery.

One less sir

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Sir Greek Restaurant

The Danforth’s first couple of cuisine, Sir Greek & Sir Sub, separated a couple of weeks ago. The pre-nup stipulated that Sir Greek would keep the restaurant and patio and he wasted no time in dropping Sir Sub’s name from his documents. We’ll miss you, Sir Sub, but the odds weren’t in your favour: half of all cross-concept restaurants end in divorce. Here’s another picture of the happy (at the time) couple in April 2009, when they were renovating their new abode before moving in:

Sir Greek and Sir Sub

Ah, memories.

Dysart et al

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Municipality of Dysart et al

I suppose that you really have to come up with something shorter to fit on road signs when the full name of your municipality is the United Townships of Dysart, Dudley, Harcourt, Guilford, Harburn, Bruton, Havelock, Eyre and Clyde. The initialism of UTDDHGHBHEC doesn’t look much better and isn’t very catchy. But you’d think that since the initial amalgamation of the first four of these in Haliburton County in 1867, the township et al’s residents would have been able to let some of the names slip into history.

On the other hand, living in Toronto et al, formed in 1954 with a full name of the United City of Toronto, Scarborough, East York, Leaside, North York, Forest Hill, York, Weston, Swansea, New Toronto, Mimico, and Long Branch would have its charms.