Architect gives retail project thumbs up after seeing for himself

The Globe and Mail

A prominent Canadian architect has decided to back a controversial development in the old east-end neighbourhood of Leslieville, saying that federal NDP Leader Jack Layton misled him into opposing it. In a letter to Mr. Layton, who was once the councillor for the city ward in which the project is located, Jack Diamond said that the impression he got about the development from a telephone conversation with Mr. Layton "was of a large box surrounded by surface parking." Mr. Diamond wrote that now that he has seen the project's plans, "they differ in several important respects" from what Mr. Layton described to him, including a failure by the NDP Leader to mention that, along its two main sides, the project is a continuous front of shop windows, store entrances and pedestrian colonnades.

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