Yorkville rises

Nothing over three stories existed in this photo five years ago.

The Yorkville neighbourhood continues to grow more dense with multiple high-end condos. The building in the distance with the two cranes is the new Four Seasons Hotel, which will contain both hotel rooms and more condominium units. The neighbourhood's cozy streets filled with restaurants, boutique shopping and all the usual amenities one needs to live make it a great location, not to mention it sits above and around two subway lines.

It's a great place for a pedestrian. Since the streets are so narrow, cars drive slowly.

Robarts Library

Robarts Library at the University of Toronto is adding staircases where they didn't previously exist and getting rid of its windswept 2nd floor plazas and turning them into glassed study spaces. These improvements were part of the original design of the library but were cut out due to budget constraints. The new staircase will add a new access point on Hoskin, which will improve flow to the library. The added study spaces are much needed for the large school body.

New staircase on Hoskin:

New glass with previously existing staircase on St. George Street side (additional stairs will be added here, seen in the open space on the right side of the picture):

Glass close-up:

Downtown Living

Some interesting recent articles on downtown living:

Larger Units for a Richard Meier Condo by Fred A. Bernstein (NY Times)

"EIGHTEEN units have disappeared from On Prospect Park, the condominium building in Brooklyn designed by Richard Meier. The developer, SDS Procida, has been reworking the building’s interiors, originally expected to contain 114 units, to include more family-sized apartments. Now there are 96 units.

...Market research “showed strong demand for family-sized units” — which led to the consolidation of apartments."

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Rethinking downtown housing by Darren Currin (The Journal Record, Oklahoma City)

"During the discussion, Craig Tucker, senior vice president of Price Edwards & Company, shared an intriguing opinion that developers and city leaders may want to rethink the way they are approaching downtown housing and consider building more affordable options first before building an excess of upscale housing options.

By having more affordable properties that attract young professionals, they may ultimately adopt a fully urban lifestyle and live in the downtown area for most of their adult lives. It would become a natural progression for downtown residents as they move from affordable to upscale housing as their careers prosper financially."