Christo­pher Hume – Toronto Star

To stroll along Brem­ner Blvd. is to take a walk into the future of Toronto. Start­ing at the Air Canada Cen­tre and head­ing west to Spad­ina, this is a thor­oughly con­tem­po­rary street of tall tow­ers and green spaces, pub­lic and pri­vate, that offer an excit­ing glimpse into where the city is headed in the decades ahead.

What makes this espe­cially inter­est­ing is that Brem­ner has the poten­tial to become one of Toronto’s pre­mier des­ti­na­tion streets. Already, it draws thou­sands of vis­i­tors on an almost daily basis. They are there, of course, because of the Air Canada Cen­tre and the Rogers Cen­tre, but also because of Round­house Park, where trains, real and toy, and rail­way archi­tec­ture are displayed.

As is always the case, how­ever, it’s the periph­eral attrac­tions appeal nearly as much. That includes the hotels, cafés, restau­rants, bars and shops that con­sti­tute the infra­struc­ture of a mod­ern urban plea­sure zone. This may not be Toronto’s new Enter­tain­ment Dis­trict, but it soon could be. The miss­ing ingre­di­ent is the side­walk den­sity and the close-grained streetscape nec­es­sary to cre­ate the crit­i­cal mass of peo­ple and activ­ity that brings an area to life cul­tur­ally, socially and economically.

West of Spad­ina, where Brem­ner becomes Fort York Blvd. and will even­tu­ally extend beyond Bathurst, the street becomes over­whelm­ingly res­i­den­tial. Here it looks onto town­houses and neigh­bour­hood parks that are mainly of local inter­est. As so much of the new precinct is still under con­struc­tion, its final rela­tion­ship to the larger com­mu­nity remains to be seen.

But start­ing with Maple Leaf Square just east of York St., Brem­ner could one day actu­ally live up to its des­ig­na­tion and func­tion as a boule­vard. The big issue will be what hap­pens west of York where the street awaits com­ple­tion. Not much can be done about the heav­ily land­scaped entrance to the Metro Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, though there’s enough space to add a whole new layer of street-oriented development.

Maple Leaf Square, a recently com­pleted instant neigh­bour­hood orga­nized around the Air Canada Cen­tre, is a gath­er­ing place for happy hordes if and when the Leafs and Rap­tors win (or not). Mix­ing cor­po­rate, com­mer­cial, hos­pi­tal­ity and res­i­den­tial, these new build­ings define a pub­lic space that encom­passes Brem­ner. This is where vis­i­tors find the ameni­ties and attrac­tions includ­ing a giant video screens so sought after by the urban throng. On the other hand, the pos­si­bil­i­ties here of street life have yet to be exploited. There are no out­door cafés, no side­walk shops, few benches and trees. Per­haps they will appear in time.

What Brem­ner needs are more struc­tures like 51 Lower Sim­coe St., an oth­er­wise ordi­nary condo com­plex sit­ting atop a retail podium built right out to the side­walk. It is filled with places to eat, drink and best of all, watch the pass­ing parade.

At the west end, Brem­ner becomes part of a vast paved area around the Rogers Cen­tre. Designed more for cars and buses than pedes­tri­ans, it has some way to go before it deserves to be called a boule­vard. On the other hand, there’s enough space here to address that imbal­ance, to accom­mo­date every­one. In fact, this stretch of the street seems an obvi­ous can­di­date to be a woon­erf, one of those nar­row sign-less roads that belong equally to all users.

Beyond that, the task will be to cre­ate bet­ter con­nec­tions between Brem­ner and its sur­round­ings. The fact it can be reached from Union Sta­tion is a huge asset, one that ensures con­nec­tion of the most fun­da­men­tal sort.

The base of the CN Tower rep­re­sents another huge oppor­tu­nity. Today, it’s a maze of tem­po­rary sheds, empty spaces and stair­wells that don’t lead where you expect them to. But if plans to build a mas­sive aquar­ium directly behind the world’s sec­ond tallest free-standing struc­ture are real­ized, it could become a cen­tre of activ­ity, draw­ing thou­sands of peo­ple weekly.

Then there’s the prob­lem of Lake Shore Blvd., the Gar­diner Express­way and the north/south streets that feed it — Spad­ina, Bathurst, Bay, York and now Lower Sim­coe and Dan Leckie Way. These urban high­ways are hos­tile to pedes­tri­ans, many of them local res­i­dents walk­ing to and from their homes.

Spad­ina, which sep­a­rates Brem­ner and Fort York Blvd., has been turned into an exten­sion of the Gar­diner. Seven lanes wide in parts, it runs con­trary to every­thing the new City­Place neigh­bour­hood is try­ing to achieve. If the city is seri­ous about mak­ing the down­town safe and acces­si­ble for pedes­tri­ans, it will have to deal with this prob­lem at some point — the sooner the better.

Until that hap­pens, this still embry­onic streetscape will never be fully real­ized. Despite such an impres­sive start, things could founder as a result of the city’s auto-dependency. That would be a loss for Toronto, espe­cially because Brem­ner is ide­ally sit­u­ated to har­ness the energy gen­er­ated by Toron­to­ni­ans’ love of sport.

From any per­spec­tive, the prospect of a walk­way between the city’s two antipo­dal ath­letic cen­tres rep­re­sents a unique oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate a com­mu­nity that includes more than con­dos.

The focus will have to shift from the peren­nial obses­sion with height to some­thing more earth-bound, namely, what’s going on at street level. This is what we see as we walk past; this is the part of a build­ing we relate to, this is the part of the build­ing that belongs to the pub­lic realm.

In many respects, Brem­ner has already sur­passed expec­ta­tions. But its poten­tial remains far from ful­filled. When that hap­pens, it could be one of the great boule­vards of Toronto.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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baby sit­ter 51 lower sim­coe toronto on

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