Toronto is the home of coulda, shoulda, woulda.

A more apt descriptive was never made......

Missed opportunities

New book shows how great plans for Toronto were left unbuilt

By ROB GRANATSTEIN

Toronto is the home of coulda, shoulda, woulda.

Great projects that never made it to blueprints, never mind into concrete and steel, litter this city's history.

We have waterfront dreams that never woke up. Great public spaces that ran out of space. Architectural marvels dumbed down to tall disappointments.

Mark Osbaldeston, author of the new book Unbuilt Toronto, A History of the City that Might Have Been, points to a road that never made it from the planners' book in 1911 to implementation, as one key place where Toronto's potential crumbled.

Called Federal Avenue, the road planned would have connected Union Station to a public square on Queen St. W., where we now find Nathan Phillips Square.

"Toronto does miss the experience of getting off a train and having something lead up to a civic square," said Osbaldeston. "It would've given a sense of place for Toronto's downtown.

"Once the opportunity is gone you can't get it back."

Union Station and the Royal York hotel were built with Federal Ave. in mind, but when plans fell apart, the hotel was extended west. Now in the way are the financial building towers like the TD Centre.

Around the Second World War, land for a square on Queen St. W. was acquired, but by then Federal Ave. was dead.

Osbaldeston said even his hometown of Hamilton has that sense of place leading to its civic square, but for Toronto, planning couldn't make it to implementation. It's the story of our city.

In Osbaldeston's research, the most damning example of that may be the waterfront.

In 1818 or 1819, Osbaldeston found waterfront land actually did find its way into a trust, never to be used, never to be built on.

It's exactly what happened in Chicago, where the lakefront land continues to be for people, not for buildings.

But in 1850, the railways came in and wound up the trust. The tracks were put in place, industry ruled and the quest to reclaim our shoreline was born.

Like every city, Toronto's landscape is littered with plans that never found funding or government approval or both. Some came closer than others, like the bridge to the island airport, one of the many proposals on display at the Royal Ontario Museum until Jan. 11.

The exhibit is a combination of plans from Toronto's vault, and some recent examples that never made it off an architect's computer.

"Some of them are quite entertaining, some of them are crazy," said outgoing TEDCO President Jeff Steiner. "But many are inspiring."

In the crazy category, how about Velo City? It's a highway for bikes criss-crossing the city. The two tubes with three lanes in each -- for slow, medium and fast cycling traffic -- are elevated above the roads so no major real estate costs would be incurred.

Then there's the proposed Humber Bay redevelopment from 2001 that called for connecting High Park to Sunnyside and the lake through a massive bridge over the Gardiner Expy. and Lakeshore Blvd., and along the curved shoreline. How about 13 low-rise condos right along the lake? Hmm, in a city that hates condos along the waterfront, letting buildings take over an untouched beachside location. Don't think so.

It's filed under "G" too.

In the more realistic category is what is now known as College Park. The building was conceived as the T. Eaton and Co. HQ. Phase one, the elegant building you see now, made it. What didn't was a 670-foot highrise. The Depression snuffed out that skyscraper.

Then, of course, there's Toronto's Bay-Adelaide Centre. It died in the recession of the early 1990s, as office vacancies soared. Toronto was left with a six-storey stump and a parking garage, a long-standing monument to a city stalled.

Finally, in 2006, the stump came down and a new three-building plan was unveiled.

The first building will be finished by July, said Brookfield Properties CEO Tom Farley. But phases 2 and 3 are now on hold, he said.

Is this site, this project, cursed? Just when it looks like it's a go, the market makes it impossible.

This is Toronto's ultimate coulda, shoulda, didn't site. It's getting better, but, like Toronto itself, fails to reach its full potential.

-- Mark Osbaldeston will give a free presentation at the ROM Dec. 4 at 7 p.m.