Downtown Eastside - Old Town - Corktown : Development News

One of the city’s biggest demolition jobs is about to get underway to make room for a new 540,000 square foot mixed-use complex at 88 Scott Street near Yonge and Wellington.

What’s there now, at 185,000 square feet, is a 1951 limestone building, to which several additions were made in the early 1980s. What makes the demolition such a major project is that the developer, Concert Properties, has decided to save the limestone and incorporate it into the new building.

"All the stones will be catalogued, cleaned and repaired if necessary," says Concert’s VP of development, Kelly Wilson. He says they’ll probably end up being stored for at least two years before being reused. In addition to greatly reducing the demolition waste (and the new material needed for construction), one of the side effects of the decision will be that, despite the new design, the building will retain some familiarity.

"From a pedestrian perspective, you’re going to read the building pretty much the way it reads today," Wilson says. "Floors two to five will look virtually exactly the way it does today."

"The 1951 building that we are reconstructing is not a designated heritage building," Wilson says. "But it is what we call a character building and a good example of a modern classic architectural style. Nevertheless, it has been a part of the fabric of the community for the last 62 years and although salvaging and reinstating the limestone and granite is very expensive, we believe it is the most contextually appropriate urban design solution for the site and the reuse of the stones fits Concert’s commitment to building sustainable communities."

Wilson expects the demolition to take eight or nine months, with another 42 months for construction of the 58-storey tower, which will also include five underground levels. Eighty-eight Scott will have 479 residential units, as well as 60,000 square feet of office space and 10,000 square feet of retail.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Kelly Wilson

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Ryerson's Department of Architectural Science has set its students the task of coming up with novel ideas about how to get more utility and "civility" out of our city's public spaces.

As part of a course led by Associate Professor George Kapelos, students across the faculty have been put into teams to come up with useful public amenities for 16 subway-proximate spaces around the city, from Berczy Park near King station to a 629 square metre city-owned lot near Lawrence station.

Each design must include 15 elements such as a WiFi hotspot, a weather information post, protected seating and phone charging stations, along with at least five others chosen from a list of 22 options, incuding hot water dispensers, food warming stations and donation collection boxes.

The project is in line with the city's officially expressed desire to do likewise. As Kapelos says in the assignment brief he issued his students, "The City of Toronto is seeking to introduce public facilities on city-owned properties or public spaces adjacent to major transportation interchanges that provide civic amenities to the population of the city." The city has just installed the second of a proposed 20 public toilets as part of its initiative.

Interim results will be on display this afternoon (Jan 9)  between 2 and 4 p.m., and again on Friday after 6 p.m.  The final designs will be on display in the form of posters starting at 6 p.m. on Friday at the school's atrium at 325 Church Street.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Prachi Khandekar

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St. Michael's Hospital is the latest Toronto care facility to embark on a major 21st-century overhaul.

The centrepiece of the new St. Mike's, following hard on the heels of the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute built last year just north of the main building, is an 18-storey tower that will extend the Cardinal Carter wing down to Queen Street.

A request for qualifications, the first step in what hospital officials figure will be a five-year process, went out last week.

"We needed more space," says Robert Fox, the hospital's vice president of planning and development. "We are absolutely packed as a hospital. I think we have the greatest density of any hospital in Ontario.

“We have patients in old wings, wings that are as much as 85 years old. Those wings were designed back when care was different and we have some struggled with maintaining capabilities around technology, flows, hallway clutter, things that are really restricting our ability to operate at the best of our capabilities."

Fox added that the emergency room, built for 36,000 visits a year, currently handles about 74,000. The emergency room, also part of the development plans, will remain in operation throughout the process.

The new tower will be going up on what is now a parking lot, garbage area and loading dock at Queen and Victoria. The project as a whole is expected to add about 154,000 square feet to the hospital.

The upgrade will allow the hospital to undertake major renovations in the existing building, including an expansion of operating rooms and rationalizing an often confusing layout.

"We'd love to have one front door instead of six back doors," Fox says.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Robert Fox

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The city is starting work on figuring out whether there's a way to help the visually impaired better determine when they're approaching an intersection.

The Public Works and Infrastructure Committee is overseeing the installation of four trial surfaces at Victoria and Shuter.

"It is our goal to make pedestrian travel as safe as possible for all residents and visitors to the city—especially for those who are visually impaired," said councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, chair of the committee, in a prepared statement on the subject. "Testing different options at the same intersection will give us an opportunity to perform a side-by-side comparison of the cost, ease of installation, durability and effectiveness of each treatment."

In addition to textured surfaces, the city is experimenting with different colours, looking for high-contrast patterns that will be more easily detectable to people with low vision.

"We're very happy that the city is undertaking this consultation," says Chris McLean, the regional director for the GTA chapter of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. "Generally, we feel that tactile walking surface indicators add an extra element of safety for blind and low-vision pedestrians."

Though the city chose Victoria/Shuter intersection because it's already slated for reconstruction at the end of next year, which is when the pilot project is scheduled for completion, McLean figures it's a better location than most, given its proximity to St. Michael's Hospital and its ophthalmological unit.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Chris McLean

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The $4-million donation for a Regent Park cultural centre from the Daniels Corporation—and the foundation set up by its CEO—is more significant than it may seem on the surface.

"Part of the donation has been to act as a long-term transition fund for the anchor tenants at the facility," says Daniels VP Martin Blake of the centre now known as Daniels Spectrum. "The Regent Park School of Music has now transitioned into this facility. It's a purpose-built facility for them, 2,000 or so square feet. They don't have the means to pay for market rent in the building."

A portion of the $4 million will fund a five-year transition for these tenants, part of a plan to ramp up their own fundraising and income generation to allow the organizations to ultimately pay the market rent themselves.

But perhaps more significantly, none of the donation had anything to do with Section 37, the municipal regulation that trades developer density for community benefits, the source for much of the charitable-seeming work developers do in the city.

Though it's a first for Daniels, which has in the past funnelled its donations to Second Harvest, Habitat for Humanity Canada and the Daniels School of Architecture at the University of Toronto, it may signal a shift in developers sense of economic responsibility to the neighbourhoods they’re making their money in.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Martin Blake

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For years Bay Adelaide Centre site stood stalled as a monument to the 1990s recession before construction was restarted in 2006. Now, a second tower will spring out of these once blighted foundations in a Toronto that '90s investors could only have dreamed of.

A new 980,000-square-foot, 44-storey tower was announced by developer Brookfield last week, a companion to the 51-storey tower that opened in 2009. Anchor tenant, Deloitte, is signed on to take about 419,000 square feet. The move that will consolidate all the professional services firm's downtown Toronto space into one address.

“Strong fundamentals and low vacancy in Toronto’s financial core signify the market’s willingness to support new office development,” Jan Sucharda, president and CEO of Brookfield Canada, told The Globe and Mail.

Office vacancy is so low, in fact, that Brookfield is already looking for a lead tenant for a potential third tower on the same site.

Deloitte's real estate executive Sheila Botting expects staff to be able to move in by the end of 2015.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Sheila Botting

There are plenty of bars in the Distillery District, but until now, it's been a hike to get a bottle of booze.

Last week, the LCBO solved the irony with its latest shop opened at 222 Front Street East, between Princess and Berkley. It's not exactly in the Distillery District, but it's the closest one so far.

The store, an adaptive re-use of part of the old Toronto Sun building that fronts on King, has 8,000 square feet of selling space, with a selection of 2,200 products.

The location was picked, according to Julie Rosenberg at LCBO communications, because market research has indicated the population in the area will increase by 27 per cent over the next 10 years.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Julie Rosenberg

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When columnists talk smack about Regent Park, they should be prepared to be smacked back.

After a series of columns by Sue Ann Levy appeared in the Toronto Sun last week, questioning the propriety of the revitalization of this originally ill-conceived low-rent neighbourhood, residents organized a press conference.

Mistress of ceremonies Debra Dineen, executive director of the Toronto Christian Resource Centre and a subsidized resident of the neighbourhood since 1989, introduced a string of speakers, including longtime residents and a new buyer of a market-priced condo, to speak on behalf of the neighbourhood and its current direction. (The physical aspects of the revitalization are being handled by Daniels Corporation.)

Dineen calls Levy's columns a "smear campaign" and an attempt to destroy the "good work" being done in Regent Park.

The event drew about 140 people to the as-yet-unlandscaped grounds in front of the Resource Centre at 40 Oak Street.

"Regent Park has gotten richer," Dineen told the crowd. "And we're worth it."

Kate Sellar, a young mother who recently bought a market-priced condo, spoke of the community feeling she's gotten since moving in.

"We all shop for bargains at Freshco," she said from the podium. "We all get our coffee from Tim Hortons," adding that "all the kids are going to swim in the new pool, all the kids will go to school together."


Writer: Bert Archer
Sources: Debra Dineen, Kate Sellar

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Downtown will get another hit of suburban cuisine when the fifth Jack Astor's hits the core later this year.

The location, the former site of a Tim Hortons and Wendy's at Front and Church, was chosen because it fits Service Inspired Restaurant's (SIR) selection model.

"It's not as though there's a real push on urban stores," says the chairman of SIR's board, Grey Sisson. "We've just identified the kinds of areas we want to expand in, and when an opportunity comes up, then we move ahead."

The 7,000-square-foot location, which will be renovated into a split-floor restaurant with a loft-type bar above, will be about the same size as the restaurants at Sherway Gardens and Yonge and Dundas.

What Sisson describes as a gut renovation will not begin until the city approvals come through, which Sisson is hoping to receive within the next month.

Jack Astor's also operates stores on John Street and on Yonge just north of Bloor.

SIR also owns Canyon Creek, Alice Fazooli's The Loose Moose, Reds and Far Niente.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Grey Sisson

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The reconstruction of Market Street is right on schedule.

The block-long street that runs along the west side of the St. Lawrence Market was the next big thing heritage redeveloper Paul Oberman had on his plate when he died in a plane crash last March.

The man responsible for the Summerhill LCBO, the renovation of the Five Thieves (with the addition of a thief or two), and the longtime owner of the Gooderham building (aka the Flatiron) had envisioned giving the city a Market Street that lived up to its name, instead of the desolate little nothing it had become.

And his widow, Eve Lewis, founder of Urbanation, who took the reins of Woodcliffe Properties and as president and CEO, is making sure Market Street turns out just as Oberman had envisioned.

"Everything is going according to Paul's original design," she says, "and we have gotten the approval for the sidewalk widening, which is the first private initiative [like that] that's ever been done in the city."

The small LCBO that had been on the corner of Front has already been moved into temporary space on Market, and construction will start on its vastly expanded space, that will take it from Front almost all the way back to The Esplanade, when the weather turns in spring. When completed, the street, with its newly expanded sidewalks, will be home to the longest stretch of bar and restaurant patios in the city.

"The model is the Summerhill plan," says Lewis, "except with a higher density of restaurants."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Eve Lewis

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People are moving into The Modern this week, fleshing out the years-long process of overhauling Richmond Street East.

The Modern, a 17-storey, 343-unit tower by Empire that was aimed at first-time buyers with prices ranging between about $350,000 and $450,000, is the newest addition to a neighbourhood with a lot in the works, including a possible 18-storey tower by Brad Lamb at 231 Richmond East.

"It's really contributing to the revitalization of Richmond east of Yonge," says Empire vice president Paul Golini. There is also small-scale retail on the ground floor.

The Modern is at 306 Richmond East, at Sherbourne.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul Golini

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Nominations opened this week for the 2012 Green Toronto Awards, though the most interesting category from the 2011 edition has been dropped.

Last year, the awards expanded to include a green homes category, aimed at individuals who had done something remarkable to or with their own homes.

"It wasn't our strongest category," says Jessica Chow, co-ordinator for the city-sponsored awards. "We don’t know why. We noticed a lot of them were, 'Oh, I recycle in my home.' It wasn't really what we were after."

So this year, it's been folded into the more general green design category, where individual homes will now compete with eco clothing, green roofs and other design innovations.

Nominations can be submitted here until midnight on Feb. 6. Winners will be announced in March.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jessica Chow

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Regent Park took another step forward on Saturday at the grand opening of the two new Bixi bike stations, the first two outside the downtown core.

Sponsored by Daniels Corporation, the private-sector development partner for the new Regent Park, the two stations are at Dundas and Parliament, and Parliament and Gerard, with 11 and 27 bikes respectively. The cost, which Daniels covered, was about $10,000, according to Martin Blake.

"We saw Bixi coming around, and thought to ourselves, 'What a wonderful benefit to bring to the neighbourhood,'" says Blake, who's vice president at Daniels, as well as vice chair of Habitat for Humanity Canada, an organization he's been working with since 1996.

The bikes, in addition to the Autoshare and Zipcar spots already there, will serve the residents of the two existing buildings, One Cole, with its 292 units, and One Park West's tower and townhouses, which comprise 227 units.

The bikes were first installed about three weeks ago, and ever since, Blake says he's been using a Bixi app, available for Blackberry, iPhone and Android to monitor their use, which he says is prodigious.

"I sit in meetings and keep track of how many bikes are out right now," he says. "It's kind of addictive."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Martin Blake

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The Salvation Army's much-awarded flagship downtown building has been recognized once again.

Ontario Wood Works has given the Diamond and Schmitt-designed structure, with its maple floors and red oak millwork and cabinetry, its annual prize for "outstanding use of wood."

"We are pleased to be recognized by Ontario Wood Works and especially gratified that the Salvation Army Harbour Light is the recipient of yet another award," said Donald Schmitt, a principal with the firm, in a released statement.

The $35-million building at Jarvis and Shuter opened its 85 residential treatment beds and its 98-unit transitional housing complex in 2009. It has already won the 2010 Brick in Architecture award, the Ontario Architecture Association Design Excellence award for 2011, and the Toronto Urban Design Award of Excellence, also for 2011.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul French

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Work will start Sunday on the main entrance of St. Lawrence Market, closing it for about four weeks.

The new design will include sliding doors, signs, more light and a new design, by Onespace Unlimited, which according to senior designer Isabelle Smith will add "wood and warmth to the place."

According to Rebecca Grima, a marketing and communications consultant for the city, the renovation will make the entrance lobby into "a more attractive and more accessible space," though one that, according to Smith, is being designed to discourage the indigent from loitering.

All six entrances are being re-done to Onespace's designs, and updates are available at www.stlawrencemarket.com.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Rebecca Grima

Do you know of a new building going up, a business expanding or being renovated, a park in the works or even a new house being built in the neighbourhood? Please send your development news tips to [email protected].