shortbranch
Active Member
Kit + Ace moving but I would suspect only temporarily while they renovate the existing location down the hall
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Kit + Ace moving but I would suspect only temporarily while they renovate the existing location down the hall
nightstreak
Active Member
It is not structural. It's a really odd choice to board up their Yonge Street presence. There used to be a Starbucks here with glazing and a Yonge Street door, which Sain German boarded up.
I get the difficulty in fitting a kitchen into such a small space but I can think of at least a few solutions to that, A spectator kitchen visible to those on the outside would totally reel me in to check out the shop. Renting one of the undesirable (long vacant) spaces in the mall with only behind the scenes access and no windows would be a good way to supply both their Eaton Centre locations and maybe service a bakery delivery.
I either wish this place so much good luck that they'll thrive and need to scale up to a different space or so much bad luck that they'll close this anti-street front space as soon as possible. Given how blocked off they are with nothing but a narrow door from the mall and an easily missed outdside door, I'm inclined to think they won't last long.
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AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
And considering the goal of the addition was to have Eaton Centre engage the street more - I'd say there is only one sucker in this whole affair - and it's the City of Toronto.
AoD
AoD
nightstreak
Active Member
Something tells me that "engaging the street more" is not on Cadillac Fairview's priority list. Recall BMO fully sealed off their Yonge-Dundas Square doors to be replaced by video displays.
I don't wish a bank to go under but I wish this branch as much luck as the "Samsung Experience Store". This needs to become something that leverages its street presence. If we're going off the Times Square model (let's just admit it), this would do well as an M&M's store or LEGO or something else fun that pulls people in from the square and engages the street.
Thankfully, Simons and Eataly will do much to enliven Eaton Centre's Yonge Street presence, doors they will have to keep open out of necessity given how cut off both are from the mall's interior.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
To be fair, that entire stretch of Yonge on the Eaton Centre side just served to highlight the utter lack of design talent, and the city's utter lack of interest, capacity and foresight in improving it. It takes real effort to transform what's one of the busiest corner of the city into an uninspiring, third-rate dump.
AoD
nightstreak
Active Member
To their credit, the demographic that's attracted to this square is not the kind you'd want walking into your stores. It would take a combination of by-law enforcement and nightly power washing the sidewalks by the city and then retailers around the square collaborating together to get the riff raff to move along. And to be clear, I'm not talking about homelessness. Walk through the square at any time of the day or night and it's like a losers club meet. We all know when we see it.
Downtown Yonge has always been rough around the edges but I don't ever recall it being like this going back to the 80s.
mcbg1
New Member
Can't blame stores from not wanting a street entrance given how common crime is and how soft the city is on preventing and prosecuting it.
gabe
Senior Member
The lady next door was telling me , her daughter works at a store in the Eaton Centre, somebody OD and died in the washroom at the mall earlier this year. Her daughter saw them wheel the dead body out. Probably not the first person to OD in there sadly.
Richard White
Senior Member
mcbg1
New Member
It could be helped if the city cracked down on open drug use and on prosecuting junkies from stealing stores. But we just let it happen because they are people with rights who are poor victims of capitalism or whatever the reasoning is.
Northern Light
Superstar
We can thoughtfully discuss a different strategy on managing the issue......
But suggesting there is no enforcement is incorrect. Its spotty/un-even that's true.
Much like the LCBO's theft issues. I've personally seen undercovers take someone down at the LCBO in the last few months. Greater numbers were deployed and clearly directed to be more aggressive.
The problem dropped off at many stores; but is creeping up again as the organized folks seem to now recognize the undercovers and word gets around.
Of course these types of operations cost money......
I'm familiar with this for one very substantial, high-sales grocery store in the City, it regularly deploys in-house undercover 'loss prevention' and often has paid duty police present.
The cost is over 1M per year for that one store.
I put that out there just to make sure everyone realizes, aggressive enforcement isn't cheap.
That's before considering the costs of court, potentially re-hab, jail/prison, parole. Holding someone in jail is not free, its well over 150k per year. Its housing, but with lots of security, and food, and on-site healthcare etc.
See above, that's not correct. Could we do more? Yes. Should we? Yes. But we don't 'just let it happen' such over simplification is unhelpful.
You're just making this up rather than making an effort to understand how we get where we are.
First, you need to separate out different things, homelessness/encampments, drug addiction, theft/shoplifting.
Encampments have been tolerated, in large part, because the shelter system is overloaded, and often has no spare capacity on any given night. Jail is hardly a just option for someone whose 'crime' is homelessness, but regardless, the jails
too are very full and expensive. People also have a right to a bail hearing, this is not new or recent, the standard for holding someone in custody who has not been found guilty by a court yet should be high.
There's also a question of effectiveness. The City cleared the encampment at Dufferin Grove Park just a couple of weeks ago. I was there Saturday and new tents are everywhere. You can't have police in the park 24/7 preventing the next tent.
Drug use is a social ill, but one that often, unto itself harms only the person doing it. Its not ok, we don't want to see it; but the system, resources aside, has to grapple w/the moral quandary that those who are housed can use in private, essentially penalty free. While those who aren't may face much harsher penalties. The law ought to be consistent. It could be, if everyone were housed.
Drug use itself, (if someone is not otherwise violent or criminal in their conduct) is unlikely to attract a significant jail sentence. So officers are not inclined to devote alot of time to a revolving door. Judges see no fairness or value in a long-term incarceration sentence, particularly if treatment may not even be available and in any event is not compulsory.
Finally, on shoplifting, as with the LCBO example, I can tell you that there are arrests and police-attended apprehensions in the Eaton Centre regularly. But yes, resources are finite and not everyone is caught and others, especially teens are let go with a warning and a legal caution and sometimes a ban from the mall on a regular basis too.
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matrix
Active Member
The Simons marquee has been revealed!
matrix
Active Member
Better look from the fourth floor. Moments after taking the photo two vest-clad workers popped up behind the sign in the window to drag something on the ground so safe to say construction is still not complete, even if they took down the facade. Looking nice though.
nightstreak
Active Member
I walked past this morning and took the same picture of the curtain. Won't share as it's essentially identical. I was able to peek behind the curtain and also could see finishing work occurring on the third floor of Simons.
- Simons looks finished up there on the third floor. Drywalling and lighting has been installed, it looked painted too.
- The scaffolding that's still up is for Eataly which appears to be lagging behind.
- Nike, as I had shown in recent pictures, is still an empty shell but structural work is largely complete awaiting Nike's build of their store.
- The corridor towards Dundas looks to be in an advanced stage of completion. I think they'll open the corridor while work continues on outfitting Simons.
The green tiling is growing on me, specially because the white slate is going to remain on the sides and Simons' tile is its own strip across the top.
matrix
Active Member
I think they are doing quite a good job of retrofitting the Nordstrom box and I like what they did with the tiling. Seems like they aren't opting for doing too much renovation to the window work, and if the Yorkdale mockup we saw last year is any indication, they're not even going to remodel the exterior all that much at that location at least (different at Eaton Centre, as the box is now sharing numerous stores of course). They're even keeping the old Nordstrom window stripes. Adding a little bit of green seems to be all they have to do here and I think it fits just well. After all, the interior of the store matters way more when you go to Simons. That should look nothing like Nordstrom.