city building : Development News

Excavation is nearly complete on the 10-acre site that will be the World on Yonge, a 1.8-million square foot mixed-use development at Yonge and Doncaster.

The former site of a Hy & Zel's anchored strip mall at 7171 Yonge Street, the development is one of several large-scale mixed-use projects designed over the past several years by Kirkor Architects. The World on Yonge schedule more or less mirrors another of these, the Hullmark Centre, south on Yonge at Sheppard.

Once completed, it will include a retail plaza, office tower, hotel and four residential towers, all by Liberty Development.

Originally scheduled to be built in four phases, sales and rentals were brisk enough, according to Kirkor's Cliff Korman, that it's been reduced to two. "It sold so well," he says, "that 1.1 million square feet is being done all at once."

The first phase will be the retail plaza and the facades facing Yonge Street, including 700 residential units, 120 hotel room, 250,000 square feet of retail, and 180,000 square feet of commercial.

Once excavation is completed in April, Korman expects it will take about 9 months to put in the 2,408 underground parking spaces.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Cliff Korman

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The building on the northwest corner of Richmond and Peter, a relatively non-descript four-storey building that's been home to several short-lived nightclubs and restaurants over the years, is on the verge of a transformation.

Allied Properties Real Estate Income Trust, the commercial developer responsible for the architecturally successful 111 Queen Street East agglomeration of heritage buildings, plans to renovate the exiting building and add a new tower on top of it, which they intend to build to LEED Gold specifications.

Allied bought the building in 2003 and has been biding its time until the market seemed right. Now it's officially looking for a lead tenant.

"In a perfect world, [they'd take] around 100,000 square feet," says Allied's AVP of investment, Emily Hanna, who hopes to have someone signed by the end of May. "We'll announce a tenant, and the next day we'll break ground."

The new building will have a total of 275,000 square feet and will be called Queen Richmond Centre West.

Allied's approach to commercial space bears a lot of resemblance to other developers' work turning warehouses into lofts.

"The main reason people will fight for living in a condo downtown is because they want to be near their work space," Hanna says, "so there's this interplay between the work, the residence and the retail." People, she says, like having work spaces that have the same ethos as their living spaces.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Emily Hanna


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The 700 square foot space that once housed Light Options on Avenue Road has re-opened as a high-end German bedding boutique.

H.C. Sanders, elsewhere known as Sanders of Germany, a 125-year-old company, moved into the 122-year-old house at 102-104 Avenue Road, which it shares with Richard Wengle Architect, in November.

The shop, which also has a basement and underground parking, is the first entry into the Canadian market for the Bramsche-based drapery company, which got into the bedding business in 1993 and has also recently branched out into the South African and Ukrainian market.

The company launched its Canadian operations with a party at the Thompson Hotel, attended by the Sanders family, headed by CEO Hans-Christian Sanders.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jo Ann Baguioro-Thompson

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One of the largest houses on Admiral Road, the Annex nexus that's home to an Atwood, a Clarkson, a Ralston Saul and a Weston, belongs to the Salvation Army, and its massive renovation is close to complete.

The house at number 78, built in 1911 and acquired by the Salvation Army in 1966, is part of the religious organization's Homestead program for substance abusing women.

The renovation was funded largely through donations, including one for $1.5 million from the W. Garfield Weston Foundation. The renovations are comprehensive, according to Major Elizabeth Price, Homestead's executive director.

""The heating, plumbing and electrical systems will be updated," she says in a release. "Every part of the building requires access to stairs, which prevents us from servicing women with mobility issues. A small elevator will be installed. Program spaces will be more accessible, larger and brighter. The building will be environmentally friendly. We will be able to partner with more agencies. Residential space will be cleaner, safer, and brighter and will maintain a home-like environment."

The renovation began a year ago, and is expected to be completed shortly.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Elizabeth Price

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The city announced the sale of an underused school last week, and the local councillor is worried it will mean an end to neighbourhood soccer games.

"[I]t remains unclear how accessible the school's facilities will remain to the area and residents," newly elected Councillor Ana Bailao, a Toronto Western alumna herself, said in a press release.

Toronto Western Collegiate and its grounds, near College and Lansdowne, were sold to the French public school board for $20.5 million. In the 2009-2010 school year, its last, the school was estimated to have been about 90 per cent vacant.

According to the councillor's special assistant, Deyan Kostovski, the school's gym, football field and track have been well used community amenities.

"For those who have developed a habit or routine of using the gymnasium or the field in the summer," Kostovski says, "we're welcoming [the French board] into the neighbourhood and hoping they'll be open to the community."

School trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher was less sanguine about the city's decision to divest.

"I find myself just so pissed off that we are again doing something that is patently stupid. We are selling something that we are going to regret," she told the CBC. "And I hate that kind of situation."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Deyan Kostovski

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The new president of the Ontario Home Builders' Association, Heathwood Homes' Bob Finnigan, says the end of the traditional suburban single-family dwelling is nigh.

But he figures that won't stop a new wave of urban family exodus, given that condos have largely ignored families.

"The growth plan, which calls for the intensification of land use across the GTA, is restricting the ability to build a true single family home even in suburban developments," he says, reflecting on the latest numbers which peg the GTA's 2010 development at about 37,000 new residential units. "You're going to see town homes, semi-detached, your traditional 40 or 50 foot single family home is going to become rarer as time goes on."

Though he appears to be neither for nor against this latest development, which has also seen the centre of gravity in GTA's development shift from the 905 to the 416, he is concerned that the average size of the now dominant built form, the condo, is 600 square feet which, he says, "really isn't providing a lot of growing family units.

"There's not a lot of three bedroom, almost no three bedroom, two bedrooms are rare, and those units that are that size are generally expensive because the cost of construction in high-rise is more than double low-rise. The 416 housing stock is not family oriented."

And with the suburban shift from single-family homes to town houses, duplexes and other forms of higher density low-rise development that remain larger than the downtown average, he sees another suburban shift once the current young condo-buyers start to reproduce.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Bob Finnigan

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Toronto has been named Canada's most sustainable large city for the second year in a row.

The award, given by Corporate Knights and announced at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual Sustainable Communities Conference in Victoria last week, gave the city a 69 per cent, two per cent lower than the winners of the small and medium sized categories, Victoria and Vancouver respectively.

"It wouldn't get anyone into university," says Corporate Knights researcher Erin Marchington of the relatively low scores, though she commends the city on what it has been able to achieve. She pointed out Toronto's household waste diversion and its retrofit grants, which help property owners green their buildings, as high points.

She also likes the city's approach to green roofs. "Toronto has one of the few requirements for a green roof to be put on a building over a certain size, 2,000 square metres," she says, "which is really innovative."

The award, which takes a very broad approach to sustainability, also commended the city on its relatively high municipal voter turnout, which at 53 per cent, dwarfed Victoria's, for example, which was 23 per cent.

Where the city falls down is in total waste diversion, including corporate and industrial, which she pegs at hovering around 40 per cent. The Corporate Knights ideal is 80 per cent. She also points out the low proportion of green space in the city -- 12 per cent of its total area.

Corporate Knights is an independent media company founded by Toby Heaps. It studies sustainability issues, concentrating mostly on the business world. This is their fifth annual municipal ranking.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Erin Marchington

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Toronto's walking strategy has been named the best transportation plan in the country.

As described in the citation from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, who gave the award, "The city aims to strengthen Torontonians' sense of community by putting more "eyes on the street' and by creating more shared public spaces and opportunities for social interaction and recreation."

The plan, developed roughly between the Walk 21 conference in Toronto in 2007, and its adoption in May, 2009, has been funded through the public realm section of the city's $1-billion street furniture advertising contract with Astral Media, from which the Pedestrian Projects division gets roughly $1 million a year.

"I think it's that, for me, it's the three guiding principles: design excellence, universal accessibility and safety," says Fiona Chapman, the woman in charge of executing the strategy.

She's especially enthusiastic about the strategy's design aspect. "If it isn't handsome, there's no point in it," she says. "A lot of walking is not just about getting from a to b; it's sitting, watching other walkers, that's what makes our city so fantastic."

The strategy involves physical things, like paths, green spaces, benches; promotional items, such as ad campaigns and a walking website; as well as more strictly pragmatic things, like the pedestrian scrambles at Yonge and Dundas, Yonge and Bloor and Bloor and Bay.

The current strategy has a 10-year time frame.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Fiona Chapman

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Qi Natural Food has opened a new location double the size of its first.

The 2,000 square foot shop at Bloor and Christie expanded into a second, 4,000 square foot location at 572 Bloor West, called Herbs and Nutrition, just east of Bathurst in the old Payless Shoes space.

Owners Joanne and Yong Nam Hur have put their son, Ken, in charge of the new location.

"It's a full grocery store," says Ken Hur. "We're going to have lots more household items. We have a produce section, which we didn't have room for before, and a larger bulk section as well."

Though Hur says the renovation was not extensive, limited to re-flooring and the removal of some drywall and installing new lighting, the work took two months, before the store opened in December.

The Hurs signed the lease for the new space last summer.

Qi has another location at on Eglinton west of Bathurst.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ken Hur

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The ground is being broken today for One Valhalla, the first phase of a massive residential project that is replacing central Etobicoke's storied Valhalla Inn.

The three-tower, multi-townhouse development by Page and Steele/IBI Group architects will ultimately house around 2,000 people. The first tower is set for completion by the end of 2012, and the first town houses will be ready for occupancy around December of this year.

"Heritage Preservation Services became aware of the fact that there were some notable features related to the hotel," says developer Edilcan's vice president G.P. Di Rocco of the 1963 building. "What made it somewhat notable, the architect was George Robb, who had done some notable things throughout the city. We worked with Heritage Preservation Services to identify certain aspects that we're going to remove, salvage and restore and reintroduce back into the project."

Edilcan salvaged several elements of the old Robb building, including a copper sculpture by the architect, which will be erected in one of the outdoor amenity areas, as well as the Viking bar and some Robb-designed light fixtures, which will become the centrepieces of one of the party rooms.

The second tower is scheduled to start construction this fall for a 2013 completion. The third tower is set to launch in the fall.

The three towers will be 22, 35 and 30 storeys, respectively.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: G.P. Di Rocco

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People really want another Loblaw by the waterfront.

According to Councillor Adam Vaughan, in whose ward a new Loblaw's is in the process of being negotiated for an old warehouse at Bathurst and Lakeshore, the packed public meeting last Monday was vociferous in its support of the project, despite some Heritage Toronto concerns about the old art deco structure.

"Heritage would like to preserve the building," Vaughan says, "and they don't like it when the strategy to preserve it is to recreate it." According to Vaughan, Loblaw's plan is to take it mostly apart and put it back together again to get around certain problems, like a 14-foot grade, and the support columns for the Gardiner Expressway that are built right into the warehouse's superstructure.

Given the popular support for the project, Vaughan says that "they question then becomes, can planning staff live with it. And it doesn't look like they can."

The project is being designed by ARK, a division of the Markham- and Shanghai-based Petroff Partnership Architects.

About 150 to 200 people attended the meeting at the Harbourfront Community Centre's medium assembly room. Vaughan estimates they had to turn away another 150 for lack of space.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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Nominations have opened for the second annual Zerofootprint Re-skinning Awards, meant to call attention to a lesser-known way for businesses and homeowners to green their buildings.

Much has been written about buildings being built to LEED standards, but the concept of skinning � re-doing the exterior of a building to improve its efficiency and reduce its emissions � is a relatively new concept for most of us.

According to Anna Starasts, spokeswoman for Zerofootprint, the Spadina Avenue company better known for its sales of carbon offsets, the awards are open to architects, engineers, developers and building owners of "older, energy-inefficient buildings and implemented design solutions to move them closer to a net zero footprint performance."

"The goal of the awards is to stimulate market-disrupting improvements in the design and development of retrofitting and re-skinning technologies," Starasts says, "That is, let's make retrofitting and re-skinning the usual way in which we build our cities."

Thought he awards are international in scope, last year's residential winner was from Toronto. Known as the Now House, this WWII-era house was retrofit by Work Worth Doing Studio and Lorraine Gauthier in 2008-2009. The re-skinning resulted in a 70 per cent reduction in energy use.

Nominations close Aug. 31. Last year's winners were presented at the UN World Urban Forum in Rio.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Anna Starasts

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Two developers met with significant resistance at a recent public meeting called to discuss a major new development proposed for Front and Bathurst.

The meeting, which attracted about 200 people to discuss this and a new Loblaw store at Lakeshore and Bathurst, was told about the 900,000 square foot condo proposal intended for the 100,000 square foot site currently occupied by the Lambourghini and Harley Davidson dealerships on Front just west of the Globe and Mail building.

"It's the biggest crowd we've had in four years," says councillor Adam Vaughan, who represents the ward.

The developers, Freed Developments and Minto, proposed a linear park among four towers and a private courtyard, a project Vaughan calls "CityPlace north of Front Street."

"I haven't seen a project dealt with that harshly ever by a neighbourhood," he says. "It was just, 'No. Too tall. Too ugly.'"

I would hope they'd revisit it," Vaughan says of the proposal, designed by Rudy Wallman, "but you never can tell with Peter [Freed]." Freed, he says, was the first and still only developer to have taken Vaughan to the Ontario Municipal Board.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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Environmentally speaking, Toronto is doing well, but it could do better.

That's the ambivalent conclusion of the "report card" released on Jan. 31 by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and Greening Greater Toronto, in conjunction with the Boston Consulting Group.

Apparently, we're doing better with air, water usage and recycling, but not so well on storm water management, sprawl, traffic, forests and wetlands and the diversity of our fauna and flora.

"From a development perspective, we have to do things differently and better," says Deborah Martin-Downs, director of the TRCA's ecology division, "particularly on the transportation and energy-efficiency side."

"Two-thirds of the landfill comes from commercial companies," says Kilian Berz, managing director of Boston Consulting Group Canada and co-chair of Greening Greater Toronto. "We don't have enough diversion." Berz points to certain success stories, though, such as the Simpson Tower, which he says achieved 96 per cent diversion as early as 2008, and the TD Towers, which he says diverted 76 per cent of its waste in 2009. Berz says the average for Toronto office towers hovers between 20 and 40 per cent.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Deborah Martin-Downs, Kilian Berz

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It's official: LCBO spending is up; the recession is over. And the Board is building.

Over the course of the last couple of years, the LCBO noticed that the people who were buying, were buying lower-end brands, "stretching their dollar," according to LCBO spokesman and official recession-ender Chris Layton.

But this past December, spending was up 8 per cent over the previous December. But more significantly, spending in the Vintages sections -- where the primo stuff is kept -- was up 22 per cent.

"We've seen a return, post-recession, to what we call trading up," Layton says. "People are now spending more and looking for higher quality products."

One of the next new stores will be a 10,000 square foot location at Weston Road and Major Mackenzie Drive in Vaughan, currently scheduled to open in March. With a total of 6,600 square feet of selling area, the new store is a reflection of what Layton sees as especially significant growth in the area.

"We've seen a lot of growth, dramatic growth in Vaughan," he says. "We've actually done a lot in the way of new store development there."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Chris Layton

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