Toronto Star

The Esplanade should be better than it is. On paper it has all the ingredients to be a great urban street — trees, park on one side, a well-functioning neighbourhood — still, it falls strangely but profoundly short of expectations. Though observers have heaped praise on the St. Lawrence area for years, one wonders whether they, or anyone, bothered to look on the north side of The Esplanade. It has increasingly been turned into a mess, a hodgepodge of styles and intentions that bring a decidedly post-apocalyptic tone to the neighbourhood; as if all the rules of civilization had disappeared but people kept building. The glass-and-concrete slab at 222 The Esplanade is typical; it reads like some survivor of a kinder, gentler, time when residential architecture addressed the needs of civilized behaviour. The windows provided views, the location offered proximity and the shops at street level added convenience.