City Building : Development News

A public meeting was held Monday to discuss the rezoning application that would see the construction of a new neighbourhood at Ellesmere and Midland.

The Goldman Group and the Monarch Group submitted the applications -- there are three of them in total -- earlier this year to rezone the 3.7 hectares of land. If the application is approved as is, the plot will be developed into 162 town houses, significantly increasing the density of this part of Scarborough.

The meeting, part of the approvals process, was attended by Councillor Michael Thompson.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: City of Toronto

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The next step in the ongoing process to give John Street its due, the city is holding an open house tomorrow to discuss the cultural corridor's future.

The city will be presenting printed display panels, large scale plans of short-listed alternative to the street's current state, along with illustrations and comments from the previous public consultation held on June 17, 2010. There will be staff to answer questions and gather further comment.

"Following the open house, the city and the consultant team will continue to meet to decide on and finalize a technically preferred alternative for John Street," says Stephen Schijns, manager of the city's transportation division's infrastructure planning department. The consultant will prepare a draft Environmental Study Report that documents the whole study process and its conclusions. It is intended that staff will report to Public Works and Infrastructure Committee at its meeting of September 13, 2011 with the study recommendations, and seek endorsement of the plan at Committee and subsequently at council. If endorsed, the city would proceed to file the Environmental Study Report with the Ministry of the Environment for a thirty-day public review period, in accordance with the requirements of the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment process. This filing would occur in the fall."

If this seems like an extraordinarily long process for some street furniture and a possible pedestrian zone on a six-block-long street, well, you can ask the staff about that, too.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Stephen Schijns

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The city's first "sensory garden" opened in the Bathurst and Sheppard area on Sunday.

The result of a $1-million donation from Goldie Feldman and named in honour of her parents, the Sarah and Morris Feldman Sensory Garden and Accessible Water Playground is meant to be a play facility "for children and adults of all physical and cognitive skills and abilities," according to the city's press release on the subject.

The playground is in Earl Bales park.

Developer David Green, Ms Feldman's son, who is also an active fundraiser and philanthropist, spoke at the opening ceremony, highlighting the importance of this sort of facility in such a diverse city.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: City of Toronto

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Construction started last week on Underpass Park at the waterfront.

The 1.05 hectare space is being built between Cherry Street and Bayview under the Eastern and Richmond/Adelaide overpasses to designs by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg and The Planning Partnership.

The park's first phase, east of St. Lawrence Street, will be finished this year.

According to Waterfront Toronto, "The park will feature flexible community and recreational spaces, playful climbing play areas, and striking public art. It will also become a key link in the West Don Lands community, connecting the north and south parts of West Don Lands through the underpasses."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Waterfront Toronto

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The University of Toronto, which proposed a 42-storey student residence tower on College at Spadina, is being told to go back and try again.

"They're being told it's not an acceptable proposal," says ward councillor Adam Vaughan. "They're not going to OMB with it. I'm not sure they totally understand this site, it's a very difficult site to put density on. The property adjoins a two-storey house."

Designed by Diamond and Schmitt, the building will probably end up being considerably smaller in scale to reflect not only the single family dwellings on Glasgow, a little alley-like street adjoining the site that runs between Spadina and Huron, but the whole neighbourhood, which is fairly dense, but not especially vertical.

"The implication for height on this stretch is one which really, really worries us," Vaughan says. "We have a new proposal down the street originally came in seeking similar heights, and then came back much smaller.

"Building downtown densities in midtown is not an appropriate way to go."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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Bloor's own mink mile is finally getting a patio.

Charles Khabouth and Alessandro Munge have joined to put together La Societe,  a French restaurant that will occupy the space of the former Dynasty Chinese restaurant on the mezzanine level of the Colonnade, spilling out onto the street in the upscale rental building's open-air plaza on the south side of the street.

The restaurant, with what its PR people are calling its "authentically Parisian" menus, is set to open June 14.

With any luck, they'll evolve into something authentically Torontonian.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Andrea Cooper

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The density of Yorkville's Hazelton Avenue will be increasing in a couple of years if things go right for Alterra and Zinc.

A new design for the existing building at 36 Hazelton, the former St. Basil's Catholic school built in 1914, was unveiled last week. The resulting condo will, in the way of such things, be called 36Hazelton.

"36Hazelton represents a unique response to context; combining cutting-edge contemporary architecture with a heritage address, while blazing new trails in the evolution of urban living," said architect Les Klein, principal of Quadrangle.

And he's not just blowing smoke on the evolution front. In addition to massing this building mostly out back, one of its features will be what they're calling a wine lounge, with 22 separate cellars for residents who like such things, and an adjoining tasting room for their friends.

Units will be between 1,073 and 4,693 square feet. Landscaping will be done by Holbrook and Associates and the interiors by the Chapman Design Group.

If things go as planned, the building is expected to open for occupancy in the fall of 2013, when it seems Mark Wahlberg will be moving in.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Molly Watsa

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There's a new kind of low-cost house in the GTA, thanks to Habitat for Humanity and Daniels.

Daniels -- which has worked with Habitat before, giving the housing alternative organization a packet of land around Islington and Lakeshore a little more than three years ago -- donated a constructed but unfinished house in their new FirstHome development at 3050 Erin Centre Blvd.

Habitat for Humanity's Mississauga branch then rustled up 3,312 hours of volunteer labour to finish the interior, before it was sold to a family of six whose income, which is below the designated poverty line of $50,000 for that size of family, at market value, but with no money down and an interest-free mortgage.

Doug Clark, president and chairman of the board for Habitat for Humanity Mississauga, hopes that the Daniels gift will serve as an example to other developers.

"Maybe one of the reasons there hasn't been more of this thing happening previously is that there's sort of a stigma attached to affordable housing," Clark says. "With this project, we've amply demonstrated that that stigma is not deserved. We've got a project where there's a habitat home that's going to be within an existing community and four months from now, people will drive down the street and they won't know which one's the Habitat home."

The house will be ready for its new owners by September.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Doug Clark

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Pottery Road's been closed for the first time in at least 50 years, and probably the first time ever, for a total reconstruction.

The popular collector route, which usually carries an average of 18,000 vehicles a day, was closed a week ago Tuesday while contractor Nu Road Construction begins work on a complete overhaul, including replacing water mains, building curbs and a wide sidewalk to give pedestrians and cyclists, according to Gord Macmillan, the city's director of design and construction, "a bigger part of the road allowance.

"It's a high-traffic area for cyclists and pedestrians. That's another reason for the complete road closure."

The road will be closed until Labour Day, which Macmillan calls a hard deadline.

"If necessary, there will be work late into the days and weekend work will be required to make sure the contractor stays on schedule."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gord Macmillan

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Seaton Village is about to try out a new kind of traffic calming.

Ever since last year's construction on Bathurst north of Dupont prompted people to find alternate routes, Barton, a formerly quiet residential street running east-west between Bathurst and Christie, has gotten busy.

"About a year and a half ago we got a request from a number of parents at Palmerston school, most of whom walk their kids to school along Barton," says Councillor Adam Vaughan. "They were wondering what we could do to get a handle on the traffic situation."

Barton already had speed bumps and reduced speed limits, and residents didn't want no-turn signs reducing their own access to the street. So on a walk through, the councillor noticed the parking patterns on the street, which alternated north and south every block. It reminded him of a idea that had been presented at a pedestrian conference he had attended in The Hague.

"We decided to zig zag every half block," he says, "so there were essentially pinch points created mid-block that made people slow down."

The only expense associated with the plan is the $60-$70 per block needed for signs, which will be going up this week.

Vaughan says they'll revisit the situation next year to see how it's working, but he's confident they've found a solution that may end up being a model to the rest of the city.

"Jane Jacobs said it in one of her books," he says, "the only thing that slows cars down is other cars."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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Victoria College's Wymilwood student union building is doubling in size, thanks to a donation from two monied alumni.

The new structure, with an extra 20,000 square feet of space added on to the original 1952 building designed by Eric Arthur, will be named the Goldring Student Centre, after donors Blake and Judy Goldring, who contributed $4 million to the new project.

This year is the college's 175th anniversary.

The building, designed by Moriyama and Teshima, will add a new quad, a renovated cafe, room for 20 student clubs, an assembly space, a two-storey lounge and lockers.

"It will double in space, but not all the current space is within student use," says Victoria president Paul Gooch, "so they'll actually get significantly more space."

Gooch says that in addition to the student population roughly doubling since Wymilwood was built, it currently exists on several levels, none of which is connected by elevator, so the expansion will also make the space more universally accessible.

A ceremony to announce the gift and the plans was held on campus on Saturday. Wymilwood is closed, and will be until the development is completed, sometime late in the fall of 2012. Gooch expects construction to begin later this summer.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul Gooch

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].

Pickering has declared May Building Awareness and International Building Safety Month.

"We got some new city-wide initiatives that the CAO [chief administrative officer Tony Prevedel] has put in place," says supervisor of building permits Brenda Yarush, "and one of those is community engagement. We wanted to engage the community more in community business."

The aim is to educate Pickering residents about the Ontario Building Code in light of the large number of renovations and other home improvements being done in the city. To this end, the city's created several guides, available in hard copy and as PDFs.

As chief building officer Kyle Bentley said in a press release, "The contents of the Building Code, and the overall permit process itself, can be overwhelming for people that are not typically exposed to the construction industry."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Brenda Yarush

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In a neighbourhood that is increasingly characterized by high rises, a developer broke ground last week for a new small condominium.

Rockport was the developer of Toronto's first condo, and Jack Winberg, son of founder Bert Winberg, broke ground on Twenty One Clairtrell with the same shovel used to break the ground on that 1967 project, which has been used for every ground-breaking since.

"Clairtrell I think is going to be an outstanding project," Jack Winberg says, "one of the most outstanding projects we've ever done. A wonderful boutique project in a wonderful residential neighbourhood. It's going to bring a style of condo living to The Bayview and Sheppard neighbourhood that they don't have now. Most of the them are built in large complexes, with lots of wind tunnels and lots of traffic. It's going to be on the edge of the built up areas, and across the street are town homes and schools. There's going to be a quiet neighbourhood feel to the place.

The eight-storey building will have 128 suites between 550 and 2,400 square feet.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jack Winberg

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].

Construction finally finished this month on the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at Shuter and Victoria.

The latest addition to St. Michael's Hospital, the two-building, $103-million facility, comprised of the 270,000 square foot Keenan Research Centre and the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre, are now connected by a 17-metre helix-shaped glass bridge, constructed in Germany from Italian materials and shipped in one piece to Toronto, where it was installed in October. Glazing of the structural glass was just completed two weeks ago.

"When we started, we didn't submit the bridge for approval," says Matt Smith, project architect for Diamond and Schmitt, "because it was unclear whether the city would permit us to build the bridge, and so it was added as an eleventh hour addition to the project linking the main hospital to the knowledge institute, and as it turns out, its everyone's favourite part of the building.

"St Mikes is sort of a three-legged stool of research, education and chair and the bridge has come to represent that connection."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Matt Smith

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].

There are more exciting aspects to city building than planning, but few more pervasively important.

Last week, Steve Diamond moderated a discussion among former chief of planning Paul Bedford, municipal lawyer David Bronskill, architect and former chief planner Howard Cohen and city councilor and chair of planning and growth management Peter Milczyn on the question of whether current planning in the city is producing the best buildings.

"Any time you have a conversation and you have a lot of smart people in one place it should ignite something," says Pug co-founder Gary Berman. "Really what we're trying to do is facilitate a conversation among the stakeholders in the planning process; we think that something positive will come out of that."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gary Berman

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].