Toronto’s chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, makes no secret she has “serious concerns” about David Mirvish’s plan for a massive Frank Gehry-designed mixed-use complex on King Street West.

She worries that it’s too dense, too tall and architecturally “trite.” Keesmaat also fears that, like many Toronto developers, Mirvish will resort to “bait and switch,” that what we see is not what we’ll get.

“If we could take the promise at face value, I’d be right there,” she says. “The tension for us is whether the project will deliver on the promise.”

The Mirvish scheme, which features three super-tall towers of 80-plus storeys on a six-storey podium, would be built on the north side of King east of John Street. Before anything could happen, four designated heritage warehouses and the Princess of Wales Theatre would have to be demolished.

“A much more significant contribution to the public benefit would be required for a project of this size,” Keesmaat says. “It would add so much density; we don’t have a precedent for this. I don’t think we as a city have an obligation to absorb this much density.”

“As a heritage response,” she continues, “I think it’s poor.” In particular, she’s unimpressed with Gehry’s use of wooden beams to evoke the spirit of the lost warehouses. “It looks trite,” she says.

Gehry, widely considered the most important architect of his generation, was born and raised in Toronto. Though he redesigned the Art Gallery of Ontario some years ago, the 84-year-old practitioner has not done a project of this scale in his hometown.

Mirvish, the city’s leading impresario, is anything but your average developer. For him, the whole thing is about leaving a legacy. When his father, “Honest” Ed Mirvish, bought the Royal Alexandra Theatre in 1963 and saved it from demolition, King Street was a semi-industrial precinct of little interest. Now, it is the heart of the Entertainment District., a thriving neighbourhood that owes its very existence to the Mirvishes.

Before Keesmaat took over as chief planner 13 months ago, she was a consultant who worked in smaller cities such as Regina, Moncton and Peterborough. Much of her time in Toronto has been focused more on the public than planning. She espouses pedestrianism, cycling and public transit, insisting that people want walkable neighbourhoods and shorter commutes.

Despite the talk, it’s now clear Keesmaat has succumbed to the same timidity that has kept Toronto from achieving the greatness it so badly wants. In short order, she has learned to wring her hands with the best of the doubting Torontonians. The fear of height and density, of standing out and being bold, of duplicitous developers and lying architects, of slowing the car and of making a decision continues.

How sad that a city awash in countless nearly identical glass towers and heritage buildings reduced to a facade would fail to grasp a unique opportunity to do something truly remarkable, something that would turn heads around the world and help bring Toronto into the 21st century.

Perhaps that was too much to hope for. Toronto has seen the future and indeed it is afraid. How disturbing that a scheme conceived by a proven city-builder and designed by one of the finest architects alive should be greeted with institutional skepticism and civic smallness.

“A Frank Gehry building — particularly a tall tower — could add a tremendous amount of esthetic value to the city,” Keesmaat says. “But how we get there cannot compromise quality of life.”

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That quality of life is already compromised by the failure to control development; Mirvish and Gehry give official Toronto a chance to change that and make it — and the city — look good.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca

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