Out Cole
Pages to Fold
A Trash Bin Quandary
Introducing Ask Torontoist
Lake Shore's Dump Sites Get the Blues
With rights being awarded right and left to rename every sports facility and theatre, this is one of the strangest yet, and despite our general aversion to runaway corporate whoring, dare we say we actually kinda like it?
The long-awaited and troubled Metropolis complex finally rising over Yonge and Dundas is to be renamed Toronto Life Square, after the popular magazine owned by St. Joseph Communications. Not only is it ironically highbrow to dub the gaudy complex after a literary publication, but the name actually somewhat fits. Toronto Life? Sounds positive, exciting, and tourists are unlikely to realize that it's a corporate brand. Not that it matters much on façade featuring 20,000 square feet of billboards and video screens.
The Metropolis was approved in 1998 and was supposed to open in 2000. Virgin and Disney were slated as anchor tenants, bowing-out amidst long construction delays. The blue construction hoarding featured prominently in Bruce McDonald's weird 2001 film Claire's Hat is still there, and pedestrians and subway patrons have gotten used to cramming under it waiting for the chirping light to change.
Toronto Life Square is now scheduled for a partial opening this fall and will feature a 24-screen AMC Theatre, an 11,000-square-foot Shoppers Drug Mart, and a flagship Adidas Sport store, among others. 56 million visitors frequent the Dundas Square area each year, making it the busiest intersection and number one tourist destination by volume.
Had we known a magazine was in the running to secure the naming rights, we might have even encouraged "FLARE Square," which not only rhymes, but is appropriately flamboyant.
Image: PenEquity Development
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Toronto Death Square is more like it.
Toronto Life square, yeah right. I will give lost tourists the same blank stare I give now when they ask me "which way to The Rogers Centre" or "where is the Scotiabank Theatre".
Well we can at least look forward to the day when that damn hoarding is finally gone.
That artist's rendering of the area still scares the shit out of me.
"advertising alley" might work too.
personally, i think that picture looks awesome.. for half a second i saw the double-decker bus and thought i was looking at picadilly circus.
there is a time and a place for big gaudy ads, and a huge touristy square is exactly it. before i lived in toronto, the flashiness and feeling of excitement in a place like this is exactly what made me want to visit the big city.
(sigh)
whaddya gonna do?
Money wants and Money gets. Just sucks to be bombarded from every angle with sh*t I don't need or can't afford.
I love that corner. Very Blade Runner. I can't wait for it to be even more over-the top, and approach Tokyo levels of neon craziness. I hate seeing billboards in the middle of suburbia, but all jammed onto one corner, it's great.
11,000 sq ft. Shopper's Drug Mart? WTF?
Finally! More screens!
garish and gaudy. Don't like it.
"11,000 sq ft. Shopper's Drug Mart? WTF?"
- And therein, lies the rub. See, it's not about who has the coolest, or most creative display, or maybe even a cool company...whoever has the bucks to put up...so you have the potential to end up with an 11,000 sq. ft. Shopper's Drug Mart.
Is there anyone rich enough who could take what the corporations are doing to us, pushing their ad displays on us everywhere and do it back to them. Build a giant Calvin peeing on a billboard or something.
Example. I had an idea where, everytime I saw an ad for a corporation, I would then call that corporation and waste one of the employees time for say, 5 minutes and tell them, you just interupted a minute of my day with your crap, so I get to call or email you and give you some of my crap. Can we do that, get a mass movement of people to just BUG THE SHIT out of these corporations. If it were one medium (say, just TV)...but it's EVERYWHERE.
At least the artist has the courtesy to render a new concept drawing where not every single billboard is advertising McDonald's or Coke. Is that an InfoToGo pillar I see?
"Build a giant Calvin peeing on a billboard or something"
Isn't that pretty much exactly what fauxreel does?
On another note, I can't say I've ever allowed a billboard to "interrupt my day".
A tad offtopic, but why is there no link to a news story about this development, e.g. the Star today.
Isn't there already a fairly large Shopper's just north of College?
Here's the Star article and here's the press release:
TORONTO, ONTARIO--(CCNMatthews - April 11, 2007) - The new world-class entertainment complex opening in downtown Toronto will be named Toronto Life Square. Developed by PenEquity Management Corporation and referred to as Metropolis during initial construction, the multi-use complex is scheduled to open in phases, beginning fall 2007.
Toronto Life Square will dominate the northeast corner of Yonge and Dundas Streets. With 500,000 square feet of indoor space, the building will also feature approximately 20,000 square feet of spectacular outdoor signage, including Canada's largest high-definition video display, measuring 30 by 52 feet, and the world's largest contoured tri-vision. The video display will be enhanced by 34 surrounding video panels that can be used individually to create marquee effects or a display area of approximately 2,400 square feet.
"We are thrilled to have acquired the naming rights for what will be an energetic addition to Toronto's landscape," says Tony Gagliano, Executive Chairman and CEO of St. Joseph Communications. "Toronto Life Square, with its dynamic network of digital and mechanical screens both inside and out, will create an exciting, unparalleled experience for Torontonians and visitors to the city."
"Toronto Life Square is located at the heart of Canada's busiest intersection and Toronto's number one visitor destination," says Sharon McAuley, Vice-President and Group Publisher of Toronto Life. "Fifty-six million visitors frequent the immediate area each year, and over 20 million subway passenger trips start or end in the Yonge-Dundas area."
Life inside Toronto Life Square will include a unique mix of entertainment, lifestyle, office and shopping opportunities. These will be accompanied by an integrated digital signage network including strategically positioned video and projection screens. While each display will have the ability to be programmed independently, the system will enable coordinated content across all screens to deliver a dominant, synchronized message.
Toronto Life, in partnership with sister publications through St. Joseph Media and with technical and creative support from Alchemy (a St. Joseph Content company), will develop and produce special content for the integrated digital signage network and special live programming throughout the year, establishing Toronto Life Square as Toronto's most exciting destination and meeting place.
"With a blend of flagship tenants and dynamic media, Toronto Life Square will become the cornerstone of Canada's most vibrant intersection," says Glenn Miller, Chairman, PenEquity Management Corporation. "In order to maximize the impact of the project's retail and media components, it was important to choose a partner who could enhance our customers' experience. With this iconic name, a fixture of Toronto's culture, Toronto Life Square will accomplish our vision."
HAHAHA Steve, I love that idea!
The question is: Will these splendiferous 11k square ft be available 24 hrs, until midnight, or earlier? Shoppers can't seem to get their stores to agree on a closing time...
I wonder who is going to advertise on all those billboards, given that there don't seem to be enough advertisers for the existing ones surrounding Dundas Square. It seems that there are always a few billboards advertising movies or TV shows that came out 14 months ago. The turnover just isn't there.
Alex
hopefully once TPSC's Billboard Battalion and Rami's Illegal Signs gets the City embarrassed into lighting a fire under MLS the number of legal billboards will no longer be supplemented by the illegal ones, and thus drive advertisers to the adverghetto above.
I'd really like to try and get a movement going and start to push back on the corporations somehow. These are the corporations who are shoving thier ads and products down our throats to BUY BUY BUY, SIGN UP NOW, FORGET THE FINE PRINT, in the meantime, their shoving our jobs out the backdoor overseas. So, we're good enough to buy their crap, but not good enough to work for them. If I know a company is working to keep people here, and treats people with at least a shred of dignity, I'm more inclined to do business with them instead of some stupid honkin' ad. They've infiltrated just about every aspect of our lives...let's play with their time for a change.Call the 800 numbers and just say "Hi", email them, let them know you saw their ad, but you're not gonna buy anything...You're just browsing. Like Rodney Dangerfield in "Caddyshack", "Hey, I'm Browsing"
You mean, we didn't get Torontoist Square? How much were we short on the bid?
fourteen blowjobs, three homemade pies, and 2.499 million dollars
Is Yonge and Dundas the busiest intersection or is Yonge and Bloor? Spadina and Dundas is pretty busy too. Anyone?
"Toronto Life... literary publication" ?
I was using the term in the purely literal sense, but still, I think Toronto Life is a good magazine, and they do publish some very good stories month to month, including a literary fiction issue with works by local authors.
I think TL dropped the fiction issue.
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/08/04/040103.php
I'm a little late to the party, but... WHOA! What an eyesore! Strangely, this rendering omits the vast and horrendous expanse of concrete that is (was) Dundas Square. Good point on the irony of the name, Marc.