Tower could get the boot for profit
The 40th anniversary of the opening of the CN Tower was greeted with considerable interest; covered by all the local media with pictures, historical reviews and discussions that often revealed a real public embracing and affection for what has become an iconic location, structure and event.
As a structural engineer who was in the architectural office involved in its design, and an observer of its construction phase, I heard the question asked as to the tower’s potential life span, and the answers were everywhere between 100 and 300 years.
The real answer is that, with a modicum of maintenance, it could rival the pyramids of Egypt for longevity, but in today’s reality, it will be demolished when it is more profitable to replace it. With land prices escalating in Toronto at warp speed, that time will come sooner than we might think.
Robert Bandeen, the visionary railroad man who was president and CEO of CN at the time of its construction, and who gave the go-ahead on a project that would break new ground and go to heights not yet achieved, said this, as he unveiled a major sculpture by Gerald Gladstone at its base in 1976: “The tower is, in itself, something of a work of art, the product of the imagination of architects, the technical knowledge of engineers, and the skills and muscles of the workers.”
The sculpture he was unveiling was a 6.4-metre high ambiguous figure that Gladstone named Universal Man, the largest casting to that time by the famed English Singer foundry.
Bandeen also said: “Our decision to have a sculpture by a leading Canadian artist at the tower was made because we wanted to emphasize the human aspects of the project, whose height and technological aspects tend to overshadow the human dimension.
Gladstone’s vital and stimulating work brings humanity and liveliness to what could otherwise be a sterile landscape. I am sure that in time this work will become as familiar and as famous as other sculptures which are regarded as landmarks in their cities — Eros in London; Prometheus in New York; The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. I feel that it is something we need to share with everybody, something which should enrich our working hours as well as our leisure times.”
In an article on Gladstone in the Star in April 1975, it was reported the casting of Universal Man, which was then happening in England, “will be given to the city of Toronto next year.” Until1987 it stood in a small plaza at the base of the tower and was a focal point and much-photographed backdrop for many visitors.
Bandeen, the visionary and patron of the arts, retired from CN in 1982. In 1987 the small plaza and Universal Man, then estimated to be worth about $1 million, were in the way of SkyDome’s construction and disappeared from public view.
Gladstone was outraged when he discovered it, damaged in a remote area of the railway yards where it had been unceremoniously dumped face down.
The CN Tower cost about $50 million, is in private hands and on private land of a unique character in a landscape where land prices are overcoming many other factors. While the tower is an extraordinary money-maker (it attracts several million visitors a year), there are considerations its location is being underutilized from a profit potential.
Uptown condos in Toronto are realizing in excess of $1,000 a square foot and one- percenters don’t blink at paying $50 million for an apartment that is used for part of the year.
A 150-storey building such as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, U.A.E., which cost almost $2 billion to build and is economically viable, is illustrative of the possibilities for the site on which the CN Tower sits.
Gladstone, a feisty artist with intellectual property rights, rescued, with the help of the owners of the Yorkdale Mall, a piece of Toronto’s public art which was felled by Philistine development ethics.
But who will save our CN tower when profit comes calling?
To paraphrase Bandeen, who will emphasize the human aspects of a project that has become part of the consciousness of a city, when hubris and profit have the power to overshadow the human dimension? A forward-looking city council might consider answers to these questions.
It could rival the pyramids of Egypt for longevity, but in today’s reality, it will be demolished when it is more profitable to replace it