OK, aside from better integration into the city through transit and development to eliminate that weird buffer that still exists between cheerful King Street and the poor ol’stranded DD. Oh, and a bookstore. It needs a bookstore. I know, they’re totally over-I’ve got a Kindle too-but this is Ye Olde Distillery District. It’s crying out for it. Type would be a good fit, I think. Or maybe a one-off. It needs an inexpensive restaurant. Everything there’s pretty pricey at the moment. But I said aside from that. A hotel, right? Of course you agree. How could you not? It turns out they’re thinking of putting one up at 60 Mill Street, in one of those warehouses that’s still un-adaptively reused. A sign went up in front of the six-storey brick building yesterday, saying that an application had been made to build a 34-storey structure there – 28 storeys on top of the existing 6 – that would include 88 suites in the brick building, and 246 condo units in the tower above. There’d also be a restaurant. (The sign didn’t say whether it’d be a cheap one.) The hotel’s a great idea – early rumour says it’s a Gansevoort — and frankly I like the thought of more residents there, too, even in addition to the existing Pure Sprit tower there, and the two Clear Sprit and Gooderham towers going up. I’m a big fan of the area, and more people makes a neighbourhood better. (Well, up to a point.) The design fits in well with how the next generation of Toronto towers are looking – modular glass boxes with a stacked appearance, derived at least in part from a Calatrava design from 2005 intended for NYC. The architects are Saucier and Perrotte, a Montreal firm, whose designs I’d know more about if they didn’t have one of the stupidest websites of any architectural firm I’ve ever seen (and the bar is very, very low with architectural websites; really, I dare you to get a handle on any damn thing they’ve done). They’ve done designs for the New College residences at U of T, and for the River City condos for Waterfront Toronto. Dominique Dumain, one of the architects working on the project in Montreal, says it’s still too early for her firm to discuss any particulars. It’s unlikely that the hotel will be built without the revenue from the tower, and there’s the rub at the moment. The density being requested here is 19.9. That means they want to build 19.9 square feet for every square foot of lot space. Compare this to the densities of the current condo projects at the Distillery District-6 for Pure Spirit and 4.5 for the two Clear Spirit and Gooderham towers combined-and you see the problem. The city’s unlikely to approve that. Now of course, Cityscape, who applied for those other densities, will know that, and is likely reaching for the sky so it can grab hold of some tree tops. We’ll have to see how the giving and taking works out during the public consultation in January, and the design review panel deliberations in February or March. The other issue is the fact that the existing building is part of the original Trinity Street historical district, the original core of the old Gooderham distillery that was originally meant to be preserved without additions. So the application is not only a request for increased density, but is asking for a change to the official plan. And since such approvals work on precedents, allowing this building to be altered would make it easier for other alterations to be made there, and allowing a much higher density would also make it easier for greater density approvals for any future plans Cityscape has for the place (there are still several un-developed structures and lots in the area that the developer owns). But it’s early days. The application itself isn’t even complete yet: they still have to submit a traffic study outlining how all those new people are going to fit into those little streets down there. And the sort of hotel it might be is still just a rumour (it’s not part of the official application). And a Toronto Gansevoort has been announced before. But if you’re interested, keep any eye out for that January public meeting and have your say. Bert Archer is the Media Critic for the Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @BertArcher. He also writes a new column for the Toronto Standard on real estate.