Toronto Waterfront - Port Union

Dear old Scarborough gets its lumps yet again and deservedly so. And once again the City of Toronto planning department for ever the bride's maid and never the bride has been led down the merry garden path on the faint hopes that it can get some stupid commercial marketing company with a modicum of intelligence to revive a long dead property on the top of the Scarborough Bluffs far off in some long forgotton burb of old Scarborough.

"Oh - my - God" is head yet again ... loud and clear "What shall we do" as those in the downtown Toronto planing department who know absolutely nothing about marketing any property anywhere in Toronto let alone dear old "Scarberia". As if anyone ever really suspected that they put any real effort into it. After all, they can't even see it from their office tower, so who really cares? The Guildwood Inn fiasco remains as part of a long list of other municiple projects that exemplify the sheer stupidity of GTA planners, the economic development department staff and their so-called consultant pals who regularly feed off the culpability of what passes for civil servants. And servants they are.

"Guild Inn revitalization plan shelved" the papers yell. Little do they and everyone else know that the plan never left the dusty shelf in the first place. The more than aptly named company "Windmill Developments" headed no doubt by the great "Don" himself tilted at the concept of "the viability" of the Inn with a well "seasoned hospitality proposal" of making the Inn a boutique Inn by removing the earlier over-ambitious expansion of this moribund property. The whole project was based on full occupancy ... get serious folks ... that has never happened and will never happen. For the poor old Guid it makes a much sense as a long stroll on a short property late at night. Someone is bound to get that sinking feeling real quick and be let down in a big way. In this case the Bluffs are also aptly named for the fools who linger there.

The local Councilor says this is "a huge blow". For a politician that is easy for him to say. The local self appointed historian says the "withdrawl of Windmill is bad news".... Tilt!
The City of Toronto has seen its historical board [long considered a nuisance to builders of all stripes] go with the same wind ... left on its own the Guildwood Inn will simply implode and those who "think they can do something" will simply do what they always do and that is to wring their hands and say "oh my", and "we tried so hard". More tilting.

There is no developer stupid enough to bite on this property, there isn't one coming and there is no developer with the money "required" to essentially rebuild this property which was finished 20 years ago. Its simply not going to happen.

Like so many projects and proposals along the Toronto waterfront they are dreamed up by civil servants who can't get a real job in the outside world and politicians from the same cut of cloth that are so thin between the ears its ridiculous to think that any of the crap they come up with will ever get off the ground or off the shelf for that matter as well.
Its been one dumb ass project after another that gets the printed medias attention, so enjoy the "huge blow" as I am more than sure the economic department, local Councilors and the like are already dusting off another old project to run it past those in the burbs yet again.
Talking about "dumb and dumber" the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp has announce another design charette winner for the "downtown waterfront core". Hurray! Now the winner has been informed that there never was any money to do what they proposed anyway for the Don Watershed. And there never will be, not now, not then, and certainly not in the future either.

Oh hum what shall we do, what shall be done ..... nothing in the last 60 years and with that as any indicator, other than the City selling off all the private lands to highrise condo builders for the filthy lucre of municiple revenues, nothing but plenty of waterfront views down ally ways and over garbage cans for the next 60 years.
Yes, let the children plant trees by the hundreds on Arbor Day and let the City come back later and cut them down by the thousands on Robber Day. Yes, let the doppy cicitzens urge waterfront projects by the hundreds and let the city ignore them because their staff didn't think of them in the first place and continue to approve highrise condos by the thousands.

So there you have it, tear down the Guild Inn, cut down the trees and sell the land to a private builder for yet again another highrise condominium .... as if that wasn't the plan in the first place.
Any how that's how I see it.