TD Bank

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• We have design guidelines now for the "urban village", glengarry marrentette, east riverside, and soon Sandwich, but none for downtown?

  Why not? I'm genuinely curious about that.

• Chris S - Why? Because I truly believe no one in power/administration cares about reinventing downtown Windsor.

• Andrew, as always I truly appreciate your level headed approach and sensibility. From what I have been reading here and at other Blogs the citizens of this City really do not have a good grasp of how difficult it is to attract a National tenant who will not only contribute significant dollars to the City's coffers, but also help to promote a vibrant core. I am not going to speculate on how many employees will be working in this downtown location, but certainly the owners of The Junk, Chanosos, The Keg, Starbucks, etc., etc. will be happy to provide them with their services.

  It sounds like many of your readers really need an education on Construction and Development. Do you think anybody would be foolish enough to get into a develpment opportuntity without first understanding the true costs and value?????? So, this petty argument about a silly "daylight" corner, which truly has no merit in Architectutral design really has no place in todays times. And FTR, we did not build the Casino, nor do we do Road Construction :)

• Davide, thanks for dropping by. I give you credit, of all the people who are talked about on here (critically or not) from developers to city administration, elected politicians to land owners, you are the only one who's ever come by to leave comments. Whether or not we agree with what you have to say or not, I still give you credit for doing so...

  As I stated above, regardless of how I feel about the bank's look and design relative to the street, it's not you I place the blame on.

  The blame from me lies firstly with our Council and their unwillingness to stick to reports, then with our planning department for not enacting and enforcing better design guidelines for new construction in the core, and lastly with TD's architects.

  I can't really blame you, you're a construction company, and you want to construct. You did take a big eyesore away from Coco, and level it. Yes the construction will lead to some good paying jobs over the next year for Windsor, and I'm certain no one here can argue that we don't need them. Hopefully the new TD bank see a few new jobs created. If it ends up being a lateral move, that only results in the branches at Ouellette and Wyandotte, and University and Victoria being left vacant with no gain, then maybe we have to ask why? In this economic climate I can't see a huge market for either building once they are vacant...

  Hopefully as you stated above some of the locally owned businesses will see an increase in traffic with more workers being placed in closer proximity. I certainly do hope that something good comes of this.

  Thanks for clarifying as well that you don't do road construction or weren't involved in the Casino.

• Andrew,
  To follow up to Davide’s comments, we are the architects of record for the proposed new TD bank, which has generated an interesting amount of discussion here. We as a firm have worked with Petretta Construction for many years and were proud that he gave us the opportunity to design a new, progressive and modern building for his client on such a prominent downtown site. We find it interesting and exciting that a design can create so many reactions both positive and negative, but it does lead to the conclusion that some people are passionate about what happens in the city and especially downtown.

  We understand that this particular design may not be every body’s cup of tea, but it would be a boring world if everything was cookie cutter and consistently referenced the past. This building is a culmination of many influences including a restrictive site, TD’s prototypical guidelines, and owner preferences and of course our own initiative. Unfortunately we feel that the rendering does not fully capture the transparency, depth and detail of the structure.

  We suspect that some of the criticism for the design arises from lack of knowledge of the process, discussions and decisions made from conception to where we are today, but either way open discussion or opinion are what drives progress. We are looking forwards to seeing this development take place and hopefully when completed will become an exciting part of the downtown core.

  Stephen Berrill B.Arch OAA
  Architectural Design Associates Inc., Architect

• Stephen, I think the readers here understand very well what this building is about. And, as you say, you are governed by "TD’s prototypical guidelines" and therefore these crappy cookie cutter design pays no benefit to any community in which they sprout. There is just no character to them other than some big bank exec's ego.

• Steven, I will grant you that perhaps the renderings we've seen so far don't do the bank any justice, so, if you are able to, I will offer to you to post any and all rendering of the new bank that you would like to forward to me.

  I can be reached by email: andrew@internationalmetropolis.com

  If you can send along any renderings, please feel free to do so, I would be more than happy to post them here.

• I look forward to learning more about the design process that Stephen touches on. I realizes there are a tonne of factures going into any building like this - codes, etc...no small task. But as far design, what was the process? How does this building relate to its immediate neighbours? - And, community at large? Is this building in keeping with Windsor's Vernacular? Does this building have proper scale and mass? Are materials, or, design elements used reflective of the area, culture, etc.. I don't want to be critical if there is more that I'm unaware of.. I would really like to hear more about this process!

• Yes, I believe that in some municipalities there are holes in the design process. Windsor is not alone in this. Several years ago, Kingsville lost a significant part of its downtown charm through fire. I am referring to the the southwest corner of Main and Division. Motorco erected a structure to replace the vacancy. At the time it created quite a controversy but the unattractive structure was built and remains. The town has had several catastrophes in its downtown and in every instance the remedy was not in keeping with the downtown 'charm'. I must say however that there are examples where the owner/proprietor has made renovations to their place of business and have maintained the Victorian quality. It can be done.

• And I forgot to mention... we also at one time had light rail service to Leamington and Windsor. I wonder if all the expensive upgrades to Highway #3 would have been necessary had this service continued.