Leslieville - The Beach : Development News

Building Toronto’s first modern wooden mid-rise has certainly been a learning curve, starting with where to get the construction materials.

Following the lead of British Columbia, Ontario changed its building codes last January to allow wooden building structures of up to six storeys. First out of the gates in Toronto is Heartwood the Beach, a six-storey, 37-unit condo building by Fieldgate Urban and designed by Quadrangle architects to wear its wood soul right on its sleeve.

“We went with cross-laminated timber because we wanted it to be an expressively wood building,” says project principal Richard Witt. “Because it is very thick timber, the fire ratings are inherent in the wood. These slabs of wood can burn for three hours, similar to concrete. Because of that, it doesn’t need drywall protection and you can have the wood exposed on the ceilings and sometimes also the walls. Not having drywall is a huge advantage. You can be sitting on the couch and you look up and it’s wood. I don’t know if that’s ever been the case before, except for loft conversions.” Though the cladding of the building must be non-combustible, the designers are using Oko Skin on the exterior, a product that evokes planks of wood, and board-formed concrete where you can see the imprint of the wooden planks used in the form.

Though wood construction is considered to be somewhat cheaper than traditional concrete-and-steel construction techniques, these are still early days in the province and the supply chain can’t be described as particularly robust right now. Many of the components for Heartwood the Beach will be built with machines in a factory and then installed at the Queen East and Woodbine location, reducing the on-site construction time, as well as the on-site noise and dirt. But the Heartwood team has not been able to source cross-laminated timber in Ontario and is considering suppliers in British Columbia, Quebec and Germany. Yes, shipping components from Europe could be the best option. With four or five wooden mid-rise projects currently on the go after Heartwood starts in March, Quadrangle hopes more local suppliers will come online.

“After we’ve done a few of them, the potential for savings should be there,” says Witt. “People are beginning to think of wood construction. There’s a lot of interest in it. There’s also a lot of people who are waiting to see someone else do all the heavy lifting before they jump in once it’s all figured out.”

Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Richard Witt

When the architects at RAW Design launched Toronto’s Winter Stations competition last year, asking designers to come up with whimsical installations to liven up the waterfront east of Ashbridges Bay during the tough winter months, they were thinking locally: The Beach neighbourhood specifically and the City of Toronto more generally.

But the 380 entries in this year’s competition, themed Freeze/Thaw, came from designers from all over the world, with one of the four winning 2016 submissions hailing from the UK.

“We kind of went viral and once stuff went on the web, we attracted interest from all over the place,” says Aaron Hendershott, an architect at RAW. “There’s an interest in recreating some of these installations and bringing what we do here to other cities. Certainly there’s a lot of interest in design for the wintertime, something that gives people an excuse to go out and enjoy the city in the winter. The beach isn’t just a summertime environment.”

The UK winner, Sauna by Claire Furnley and James Fox at Leeds-based FFLO landscape architects, is an actual sauna, where passersby can see through the transparent exterior to bathers thawing out on tiered seating inside. “I’m interested in stations that are really going to provoke a new type of community space. The Sauna entry is calmer from a design perspective but I’m intrigued how this will work in a public space,” says Hendershott, who worked on the competition with the jury and fellow organizers at Ferris + Associates and Curio.

The station called In the Belly of a Bear, by Caitlind r.c Brown, Wayne Garrett and Lane Shordee of Calgary, has visitors climb up a wooden ladder into a domed interior lined with fur. Floating Ropes, by MUDO (Elodie Doukhan and Nicolas Mussche) of Montreal, offers a suspended cube of ropes in which visitors take shelter. Flow, by Team Secret (Calvin Fung and Victor Huynh) of Toronto, allows 3D star-shaped modules to be reconfigured into different structures with slot-fitting wooden connections.

The four winners, along with stations designed by students at OCAD, Ryerson and Laurentian universities, will be built from February 10 to 14 along Kew, Scarborough and Balmy beaches south of Queen Street East, between Woodbine and Victoria Park avenues. Installations will debut on February 15, and stay open to the public until March 20. Each station is required to cost less than $10,000 in materials and labour.

Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Aaron Hendershott

A long-term plan to create wetland habitat on the Leslie Street Spit, also known as Tommy Thompson Park, hits a milestone this month, as contaminated materials on the site are capped by clean material that will provide a foundation for the plants and vegetation that provide home for a range of fish, birds and wildlife.
 
In 2007, a seven-hectare area called Cell 1 was completed and currently provides a habitat for marsh birds, including nesting common terns, turtles, amphibians, small mammals and native fish in areas that were used as confined disposal. Work on the area known as Cell 2, which is about nine hectares, started late last year. A layer of soil and clay is being created with about 21,500 truckloads of excavated material to make sure the underlying contaminated material is biologically unavailable.  Rock and wood will also shape the landscape.

One of the project’s challenges is making sure the layers of soil have the right elevation relative to the water levels of Lake Ontario. “The vegetation that is within the wetlands is driven by water,” says Karen McDonald, project manager with Restoration and Infrastructure Services at Toronto and Region Conservation Autority (TRCA). “Water levels within the Great Lakes are managed, and the management doesn’t necessarily facilitate the development of coastal wetlands. The lakes are managed for ships, not necessarily for habitat.”
 
While there is a detailed plan for how the wetlands should look, materials and site conditions will drive the work. Right now, dump trucks and bulldozers are the main tools for shaping the wetlands, with excavation continuing until things are frozen hard over the winter. In the spring, the living components of the wetlands will be added to the landscape.
 
“It’s basically gardening in water,” says McDonald. “We’ll be installing aquatic vegetation like potted plant material, native cattails, bulrushes and bur-reed into the completed area and then letting nature do the rest.”
 
One big surprise came in July when workers discovered Asian grass carp, an invasive species that’s not particularly welcome in the wetlands, in one of the contained ponds.
 
The Leslie spit’s job as a disposal site isn’t yet over. The final cell, called Cell 3, continues to be used for dredged materials, with approximately 30 to 40 years of capacity remaining.
 
Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Karen McDonald

The city has three new murals thanks to Mural Routes, a little-known non-profit that uses the creation of outdoor art to mentor and engage communities.

Two of them are the physical manifestations of a new city project, which they’ve called Cultural Hot Spot, according to which they’ll be naming a succession of under-appreciated parts of town as hot spots to draw attention to what’s already happening there, as well as encourage and in some cases under-write new initiatives.

The first was east and south Scarborough, and the murals shepherded by Mural Routes,  are as close to the gateways of this area as they could manage. One is at the junction of Kingston Road and the Danforth, the other on Old Kingston Road facing east, just west of the village strip.

“When the organization started, initially the intention was to take the art our of the galleries and put them onto the street for those people who are not comfortable going into galleries or are not familiar or comfortable with different forms of art,” says Karin Eaton, spokeswoman for Mural Routes. “In the beginning, it was filling the blank walls with art, and it became more of a sharing program so we actually like to share all the information we’ve learned so we’ve become a hub for information and resource gathering about murals.”

The mural at Kingston Road and Danforth, unveiled two weeks ago, is the result of a competition won by established mural artist Bill Wrigley (responsible for well-known murals across the city, including at By the Way Cafe and The Senator). The easternmost one was a more communal effort, created in conjunction with the Morningside Library’s introduction to mural art program.

In addition to these, the most recent one, just unveiled, is by the artist known as Media, at Woodbine and Gerard.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Karin Eaton

You'd think a mid-rise condo at the corner of Queen and Pape would be a no-brainer.

You'd be wrong.

In 2012, the half-built structure was bought by the Rose and Thistle Group, a little-known Yorkville developer, after the original developer--whose name is lost in the mists of time but who confidently called the project the Film Studio Lofts--threw in the towel after beginning the project in – get this – 2006. Rose and Thistle then got embroiled in a fracas with diet doctor Stanley Bernstein.

The property, still unfinished, passed quietly into the hands of the similarly quiet, but somewhat more sinister sounding Kartelle Corporation. Work picked up again, and a new rendering was released, which seemed to picture the Queen streetcar driving north up Pape, which didn't bode well for the troubled property.

The 12-unit disaster doesn't look like it'll be going anywhere fast even now, however. After a month of trying to get a response from Kartelle, Yonge Street Media had to throw in the towel itself, unable to get a word out of anyone but the receptionist, who assured me in June that someone would get back to me. Several emails later and: silence.

So, no word on completion date, no word on sales, and no word on whether it wouldn't be a good idea to just blow the thing and start again with another developer. Streetcar, are you listening?

Writer: Bert Archer

Think of it as an east-ender's take on "Keep calm and carry on."

A few months ago, the Leslieville BIA was confronted with a conundrum that's becoming increasingly familiar around the city.

It's burgeoning strip, just a few years into its own, was going to be more or less shut down as the city and the TTC ripped up its very heart, the intersection of Queen and Leslie, to install new tracks for the new, bigger streetcars that will soon be streaming out of Leslie Barns to the south.

As a result, from May 12 to June 21, Leslieville, like St. Clair and Roncesvalles before them, was going to be in a form of municipally imposed suspended animation.

So they studied what happened on St Clair when the right of way was installed, and Roncesvalles when they got their tracks and much of their under-street infrastructure replaced over a period of months, and even went as far afield as Banff for ideas.

Then they hired a Leslieville designer, Kinnon Elliott, who came up with the poster for the "Take a Leslieville detour" campaign to keep people shopping, eating and strolling down their strip of Queen.

The BIA's co-ordinator, Cathy Quinton, says they used a bus shelter ad space donated by the TTC for one big poster, and the on-site TTC staff offered to put up other versions of Kinnon's work in place of their actual detour signs.

"The TTC themselves have been extraordinary," Quinton says, praising the weekly status update meetings they have together to keep the shopkeepers up to date during what can be very trying and frustrating times.

And to celebrate the end of the disruption, the BIA is organizing a Lemon Fest, following the theme of making lemonade when the city hands you a lemon.

On June 21, there will be neighbourhood lemonade stands between Vancouver and Booth, the boundaries of the BIA, a photo booth for people to give their best puckered faces, local framer Heliographics is offering a first prize of free custom framing for the best lemon-based image submitted by festival goers, and restaurants along the strip will feature a lemon dish of the day.

All proceeds from the day will go to Leslieville's family Red Door Shelter.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Cathy Quinton

Developers are an odd breed. In order to succeed, they need to be able to handle the risk and stress that comes with borrowing and investing 8- and 9-figure sums, and conservative enough to ensure that every project caters to the widest possible audience. They have to be able to deal with the artistic sensibilities of architects, and the labour ethic of tradespeople. It’s a rare combination that attracts an odd mix of people, and no two are alike.

Mazyar Mortazavi, however, is less alike than most. TAS, of which he’s president and CEO, is always building on the fringes of the mainstream and finding new ways to increase the city’s density. Last week, we wrote about a new project of his, DUKE, that’s expanding the condo core into the Junction. And now, with his latest development  Kingston and Co., located at 1100 Kingston Rd, he’s buying everyone in the neighbourhood a cup of coffee.

"A key thing for us, going into a new neighbourhood, is that I see it as a guest going to a dinner party," he says. "The people who already live there are the hosts. So we spend a lot of time with our community engagement program. We start talking with the neighbourhood from the beginning of the application process, in addition to the public meetings arranged with the city. Those, to us, are pretty much the end of the process."

Mortazavi says the applications have all been approved, the meetings all conducted, and sales are about to begin, and construction’s set to start, with a view to being ready to move in late 2016 or early 2017.

In other words, there’s nothing left to get out of the residents, and the average developer might be relieved that this particularly arduous segment of the process is over. But Mortazavi seems to like it, so he’s just sent out little thank you cards with coupons for two free cups of coffee at local indie cafes (Madhüs and Savoury Grounds) to everyone who lives within a three-block radius of the future mid-rise.

"Our entire platform is based on engaging in conversation," he says. "We recognize that there's a lot of chatter, and has been for a while, around the market, developers who promise one thing and deliver something else. There are people who are worried there’s a condo bubble, others that this is just going to be a box going up in their neighbourhoods. These are conversations that are happening, and we want to be a part of that, to encourage it, and to inform people."

And also be the ones buying the coffee over which the neighbourhood continues to klatch.

It’s not the first time they’ve done something like this. When DUKE was in the pre-sales stage, TAS helped launch the Junction flea market. They also hired their designer fro the neighbourhood, and bought their furniture of rate condo from local dealers.

"It’s very much looking at the underpinnings of what makes strong communities and seeing who we can work with to strengthen that," he says.

Condominium development is by definition a cut-and-run project. Developers buy land, build buildings, sell them off, and move on. The building stays, but the developer's out of there. Mortazavi, for one, would like the memory of their time together to be a pleasant one.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mazyar Mortazavi

Just when we we're getting used to calling the Beaches the Beach, the association of businesses that contributes to the upkeep of the commercial strip in the Beach has rebranded itself to reflect the changing nature of the neighbourhood.

All of the business improvement area’s official signage and other materials will now refer to the area as the Beach Village.

"The Beach Village was launched to create a distinct identity for the business and shopping district along Queen Street East," says Elise Felton, Beach Village’s co-ordinator.

"This brand refresh was not done on a whim. We partnered with … Top Drawer Creative, an ad agency here on Queen Street East. Top Drawer conducted in-depth research, including interviews and surveys with focus groups made up of both BIA members and Beach residents. The Beach as a neighbourhood offers several attractions and shopping areas.  We want to encourage residents to rediscover what’s available in the Beach Village - in the heart of The Beach."

The Beach Village Business Improvement Area, or BIA, is the longest in Toronto, spanning 23 blocks. It has an annual budget of $230,000, and its membership includes just under 350 businesses.

"Our members will benefit from a refreshed look and feel on the street with banners and transit shelter ads," says Felton, "the marketing campaign that will extend into 2014 increasing promotions and visibility to the area. The re-branding campaign is intended to get people talking about our area and to get them shopping on Queen Street East again. People will be able to identify the businesses along Queen Street East as a must go-to destination for all their needs."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Elise Felton

Eight years and three developers later, the mid-rise that’s been haunting the corner of Queen and Pape, first as a hole, then as a shell, is finally entering the home stretch.

“We’ve registered with Tarion and are waiting on Tarion approval,” says Norma Walton, president of the Rose and Thistle Group, who bought the site and its partially built residential mid-rise last summer. “Then we’ll move in with our crew and go full-speed ahead.”

Walton expects to have everything she needs by the end of February.

It’s an odd situation. The extreme delays, caused partially by the recessions and partially, according to Walton, by two first-time developer partners who had a falling out, mean that the original sales agreements for the condos have all lapsed. Rose and Thistle are in the unusual position of finishing an unsold building.

But Walton doesn’t seem worried.

“It’s such a great location,” she says of the central Leslieville site. “Our view is, we’ll get them finished to the point where we have kitchens and hardwood floors for the purchasers to choose from, and once we have the units to the point where they can be walked, we’ll probably put them on MLS with our agents.”

The nine units on four storeys range from 550 square feet to about 1,000, with two ground-floor retail spaces at 800 and 900 square feet (along with 8 parking spaces).

Though relatively unknown in the residential sector, Rose and Thistle own between 45 and 50 commercial properties, including the old Corus space at 32 Atlantic in Liberty Village, which they renovated and now rent to ad firm Cossette.

But this isn’t their first foray into homes, either. They’ve done townhouses in Scarborough and, according to Walton, some condo conversions in Yorkville.

Though prices haven’t been set yet, Walton says “The neighbourhood seems to be supporting $550 a square foot up to $650, so it’ll probably bee in that range.”

She expects to finish the building in the next 18 months.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Norma Walton

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].

In a case of space defining culture, the new Leslieville wine bar Skin and Bones is taking not only its aesthetic, but also its name from the former industrial property the restaurant partners first spotted in July.

The owners, both formerly with Pizza Libretto and Enoteca Sociale, used the skeleton of a stout, industrial-era brick building as a jumping off point to design the new open-concept space on the norht side of Queen Street at Carlaw.

The former Trusty Automotive double-wide space at 980 Queen Street East was built about a century ago, and according to Skin and Bones managing partner Harry Wareham, it looks like it was built as a high-end factory with no expense spared.

“The costs to put in the steel I beams originally must have been astronomical,” Wareham says of the now-exposed 12” x 24” beams that form the 16-foot-high ceiling. When Wareham and his partner, Daniel Clarke, were inspecting the place, a consulting engineer told them that, though there were at the time several interior walls, none was load-bearing. This meant that the entire structure is supported by the beams and the four exterior walls, and that they were free to hollow it out to their hearts’ content.

Wareham says the whole project, which involved polishing the original concrete floors and installing the kitchen, took four months and cost just under $1 million.

The contractor was PT Construction.

Though the basic idea of the place, including the menu and the wine list, had already been decided on, what they were able to do with the space moved them to name it as they did. In addition to the bare aesthetic, the name also refers to the skins of the grapes, and bones, which according to Wareham, “are the basis of all good cooking.”

Skin and Bones opened in December.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Harry Wareham

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].

Toronto now has its second half-million-dollar public toilet, with 18 more to come.

These deluxe commodes come courtesy of Astral Media as part of its street furniture agreement with the city, which has allowed them to earn advertising revenue (quite a bit, apparently) from our streets.

The agreement is for 20 toilets over the 20-year life of the Astral contract. The new one, which opened on December 7, is at Lake Shore and Northern Dancer boulevards in the Beach. The first one was built in 2010 at the corner of Queen's Quay and Rees Street.

"There is a need for public amenities where there aren't any at present," says Carly Hinks, the city's street furniture manager. "Part of the results from the public consultation that resulted in the city's request for proposals showed a need for public washrooms around the city that are accessible at street level for all people."

The hours of operation are 8am to 11pm. The toilets cost 25 cents to use, with a time limit of 20 minutes. According to Hinks, they are specifically not intended for the homeless, though it seems they can get around this by paying their 25 cents and getting out within 20 minutes. "Once this time is up, the cleaning cycle will not take place until a person has vacated. If there is a problem, service personnel are dispatched immediately to rectify the issue. This will prevent loitering and unintended use."

The heated facilities will automatically clean themselves after each use, and get three more comprehensive cleanings from staff each day.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Carly Hinks

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].

Reclamation and preservation work on one of the city's most ecologically diverse habitats is now more or less complete.

Over the years, the ravine became a popular dog-walking spot, which caused a lot of damage to the plants, as well as considerable erosion of the sloping topography.

Work to shore up and reclaim the area began in September, and included the building of a 114-step staircase and a 120-metre boardwalk. A fenced in off-leash dog area has also been marked out, to contain both canine and human activity in the area.

The Glen Stewart Ravine, which runs from Kingston Road down to Pine Glen Road between Glen Manor Drive and Balsam, not only provides one of the city's most idyllically scenic post, it is also 11 hectares of tree canopy. Because of its combination of dry and very damp terrain, it is one of the only places in the GTA to be home to such a wide variety of flora.

"In this place, there's groundwater seepage," says Ruthanne Henry, an urban forestry planner with the city, "so there are a lot of plants that like saturated roots, plants that attract butterflies, which are a naturally deterrent to poison ivy, for example." She says there are four species of tree in the ravine that are considered rare, including white oak and red oak.

Once the groundwork is completed this week, 250 herbaceous plants will be planted in the retaining structure along the slopes to prevent further erosion, part of a total of 3,300 plants being put in this month which, Henry says, "need your protection from trampling."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ruthanne Henry

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].

Mid-rise development has taken a backseat to Toronto's towers for the past decade, but thanks to developers like Streetcar, they may be the next big phase of the city's intensification.

The developer, known for buildings in Corktown, has just launched two new projects bookending the downtown core. The Carlaw, at Carlaw and Dundas, will be a 12-storey condo by TACT Architecture, built in conjunction with Dundee Realty. The plan is for 320 lofts, as well as several townhouses.

The other is The Carnaby, the third phase of a development at Queen and Gladstone that also includes mid-rises at 2 and 8 Gladstone Avenue.

Built in a laneway between the two Gladstone properties, the Carnaby will nudge the limits of the definition of mid-rise, with 20 storeys and 200 loft-style units.

The Carnaby has also been designed by TACT, with interiors by Seven Haus Design.

Both proposed buildings stick to the developer's strategy of keeping their properties on streetcar lines.

Writer: Bert Archer

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].

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

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].

The Matty Eckler community centre has closed for nine months for renovations.

Councillor Paula Fletcher calls it a "state of good repair" closure.

The centre closed on Sep. 15 and is not due to re-open until next summer.

One of the chief reasons for the renovation is to make the centre more accessible.

"The elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor," Fletcher says, "so that'll be added on, and the lighting will be improved for the pool."

Programs have been relocated to other nearby centres. Fletcher suggests calling 311 for specific information.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paula Fletcher

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].