KingJames said:
View attachment 665952this seems like a great solution for Salvation Army relocation and one that is immediately available. This "new to Mohawk" space was previously for Colombia College students, and predating that was a budget based hotel on Catharine at Jackson.
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It's a former hotel building which was sold to a developer a few years ago. Mohawk was leasing it from them on a temporary basis. I don't think it would be a great fit for the Salvation Army as it would be demised too much for rooms and not enough for common spaces, and plus I doubt the ownership group of it would be open to it.

The owners of it did an FC for a new tower in 2022:

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BCTed said:
I was in the arena neighbourhood yesterday and noticed that there is now a little village of homeless/drugged-up people on the southwest corner of York and Bay near the Starbucks. One guy was 50% on the sidewalk, 50% on the street. It was very sad to look at that and then see the big videoboard displaying exciting upcoming events.
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yep, things need to change. It's completely unacceptable. Both for the addicts who are suffering, and we the taxpayers who have to put up with the lawless and often violent behavior.
 
BCTed said:
Who mentioned arena age? The Nassau Coliseum is still in operation, by the way.
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Sorry, I read some comments online saying that FirstOntario Centre was a dump and undeserving of Sir Paul.

When you're walking out with 1M+ a show, I don't think you mind seeing some rust and peeling paint for a few hours.
 
Yorken Bay said:
Is it really just a coat of paint? I thought maybe some sort of cladding but sad to hear they're really leaning into the cliche at least on the outside.
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I think they are re-doing some of the cladding, but it is staying substantially the same. Here is an old render of how the building will look in daylight (plans may have changed since):

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ScreamingViking said:
It may just mainly be paint on the exterior, but that's a welcome change none-the-less. The interior improvements will matter most... hopefully they justify future spending on the street-facing parts.
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If OVG sees the success they expect from this project, then further renovations will likely come down the line. The current plan is clearly just to get the project generating revenue, which it can do without other bells and whistles, for now.

They can get around to ‘completing’ things per the original vision when the Coliseum has proven its chops, justifying another investment for more longer-term value.
 
OVG is expecting to spend a substantial amount of money to keep the building "up to standard" over the life of the long-term contract (about $300 million, according to Tim Leiweke in a recent Toronto Life article), which is great given that the city of Hamilton barely kept the place operational.

However, I don't think that there has ever been a suggestion that OVG considers this renovation as incomplete or that they ever had a different vision for the exterior. It's pretty doubtful that they ever really do anything with it beyond upkeep and that sounds fine to me.
 
BCTed said:
OVG is expecting to spend a substantial amount of money to keep the building "up to standard" over the life of the long-term contract (about $300 million, according to Tim Leiweke in a recent Toronto Life article), which is great given that the city of Hamilton barely kept the place operational.

However, I don't think that there has ever been a suggestion that OVG considers this renovation as incomplete or that they ever had a different vision for the exterior. It's pretty doubtful that they ever really do anything with it beyond upkeep and that sounds fine to me.
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The exterior isn't ugly... it's just not up to current "standards." OVG may make some improvements but who knows what their vision is, beyond making money. Adding another concourse under the second level is probably what would be required to wall off those exposed parts of the under-stands, and maybe we wouldn't see substantial change to the exterior unless that happens (?)

They're still kind of rolling the dice on this though. If another similar facility gets built in the GTHA, TD Coliseum will be in a pitched battle.
 
Interesting take, if TDC is a hit, then it may indeed encourage others to come forward and build a competing venue in Toronto proper. But given the ACC/SA has been operating for 20 years with Raptors /Leafs, you would have thought that would have happened already for music /other traffic. If OVG can bridge the transportation gap to Harbour West on event days, and highlight that it does that, it should do well to pull in Toronto mass transit oriented population. We still sadly have oodles of surface parking for all those who want to drive.
 
Recall the effort to build an arena in Markham about a decade ago.. if the money was out there to build a second arena privately from scratch in the GTA, it would have materialized.

The reason this works is that OVG got an existing arena for free as well as a bunch of development land they can sell off to help finance it. Building an arena from scratch means that you are spending closer to $800 million instead of $300 million, and you are looking at needing to buy land, instead of having land you can sell to pad your margins.
 
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