No, Old City Hall is not going to be turned into a parking garage
Artists post mock development proposal to build condos on top of Toronto landmark.

thestar.com
By Peter Goffin
Oct. 23, 2016

You can rest easy, Toronto. Contrary to a notice posted outside Old City Hall, the historical landmark is not being converted into a condo tower’s parking garage.

A mock development proposal has been posted on the lawn outside the court house, jokingly advising passersby of a supposed plan to construct a 90-storey residential building on top of the gargoyle-laden building and turn the existing structure into a multi-level car park.

A link on the sign leads to a Tumblr web page of other would-be development projects.

From 180 residential units built atop the Ontario legislature, to condos balanced on the CN Tower’s observation decks, to a Toronto Islands ferry reimagined as a floating base for a residential tower, the “proposals” get more surrealistic as it goes on.

It’s all a goof on Toronto’s condo-building fervor, care of a pair of artists and self-described “urban interventionists” who work under the pseudonyms Glo’erm and Tuggy.

“It is a piece of satire asking the public and the city to take a critical look at many of Toronto’s recent development projects, which show countless examples of condo towers being naively plopped on top of historic buildings as if this could preserve their elegance and our tie to their history, despite these additions,” Glo’erm, whose real name is Mike Stulberg, told the Star in an email.

“We hope that it reveals how poorly these signs serve Torontonians as a means of notifying them and seeking their feedback about changes to be made to the urban environment,” he added.

“In (the Old City Hall) sign’s ability to disappear from view despite its controversial content, the audience is made to ask what other changes might be underway in the city unbeknownst to me?”

Old City Hall was designated a National Historic Site in 1989. But suggestions surfaced last year that the 117-year-old building could be turned into a museum or even a mall once the provincial courts’ current lease on the space runs out in 2021.