first and foremost a project should be appropriately sized to market demand
For me, this is where the pro-tower sentiment comes in.
But what happens is that a tower is proposed and non-demand reasons are used to force the developer to build something much, much smaller, like what happened at the Nye's site.
and integrated into the existing neighborhood.
Those non-demand reasons are almost always the incumbents' notion of what the existing neighborhood is.
To clarify, I am not against towers in principal. Density is something this city needs, especially as we expand and improve our transit infrastructure. I am delighted to see all the new construction in town, especially as someone who works in architecture.
However, I sometimes get the impression that the choice is between a tower and sprawl. If a project is downsized or the scale isn't there to begin with, there seems to be a collective "meh."
That said, I suspect I've steered discussion off topic. I'll end by saying I definitely wasn't aware of the high demand in the area, so that does answer part of my question.