city building : Development News

The Toronto Environment Office has instituted two new Green Toronto Awards to recognize individual business and homeowner efforts in the city.

Worth $5,000 each, the new awards, which join the previous prizes rewarding efforts in local food, community projects, energy conservation, environmental awareness, green design, leadership, water efficiency and youth leadership.

"With the green homeowner award, we're recognizing people showing leadership," says Lawson Oates, director of the TEO. "Examples can be energy and water conservation measures, changing light bulbs right, conserving storm water, putting in low-flow shower heads, low-flush toilets, renewable energy insulation, geothermal for their homes, it can be landscaping, zeroscaping so they're not using tap water to water their lawn, using vegetation that can withstand droughts in the summer."

The business award will focus on products, services and physical plants, with a concentration on smaller businesses without sizeable research and development budgets.

The prize consists of a certificate and plaque, and $5,000. The catch, especially for homeowners, is that the money must be spent further your own green goals, or as a donation to a green charity.

Nominations close at midnight, Feb. 7.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Lawson Oates

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

Beaverhall Homes had their grand opening this past weekend for a new upscale subdivision in Woodbridge on the 10-acre site of the former Reeves Garden Centre.

The model home, showily designed by Flora di Menna Design (in the middle of its otherwise typically advertorial prose, the National Post's real estate section's description of the interior mentioned that "Tony Montana would approve"), is finished near Islington and Highway 7.

"It is an infill piece," says construction manager Elisa Pennino, "where it's surrounded by an existing, very mature residential area, which was eye-catching to us."

The project is being built on 34 lots, with frontages of 60, 65 and 70 feet, with depths between 157 and 160 feet. The target demographic, according to Pennino, is 40 to 60-year-old Woodbridge locals.

Prices range from $1.3 to $1.8 million for houses between 3,800 and 5,800 square feet. The architect is Hunt Design of Richmond Hill. Construction is set to begin in April or May, and Pennino expects the first closing to be December, 2011.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Elisa Pennino

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

A planned community in mid-construction at Yonge and the 401 is exhibiting a greater than average dedication to diversity.

Avonshire, by Tridel, features not only the regular, relatively high end condo towers, and the by now usual townhouse component, but a rental building as well as a lower priced tower specifically aimed at first-time buyers and others who are willing to swap space for price.

The Aristo tower, just launched, will be 285 units on 21 floors. The sizes will range from about 400 to 900 square feet.

"Aristo differentiates itself from the Avonshire condominium in that the architecture is avant-garde, with extensive use of glass, and the suites are somewhat smaller," says Jim Ritchie, Tridel's vice president of sales and marketing. "Our target market is first-time buyers that are attracted to downtown towers, in terms of architecture and design, but prefer to live in a central location, close to transit, north of the 401."

The architect for this "central" project is Kirkor, with Munge Leung signed up to do the interiors. The building will also pursue LEED accreditation, a standard policy now for the developer.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jim Ritchie

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

The third Whole Foods in Toronto, going up at Yonge and Sheppard, in the bottom of the Hullmark Centre, will be the biggest in the city.

Though loath to reveal the square footage, or many details at all -- "that would be showing our hand to our competitors," says Metro Store Team Leader Peter Hilge -- he did say it would be on one floor, there would be a cafe, and several amenities that are not currently offered in other GTA Whole Foods stores.

When asked why the company chose that location, Hilge echoes the currently popular line among developers and others with financial interest in the quickly expanding area. "If you took a pin and stuck it in the middle of Toronto, that's where it is," Hilge says pointing out it's at the intersection of the Yonge and Sheppard subway lines, and close to the 401. "Pusateri's just opened over on Bayview, and I truly think this is a better location," he says.

The new store, designed by Markham-based firm Petroff, will begin construction in 18 months, and is scheduled to open in early 2013, before many of the residents have moved in to the large condo complex above, according to Hilge.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Hilge

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

Toronto's flagship Whole Foods is getting a massive expansion.

The Yorkville store, which already dominates the Hazelton Lanes shopping mall it's in, will go from 40,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet, and encompass a second atrium.

According to Peter Hilge, Whole Foods' Metro store team leader, the deal has been signed for Whole Foods to take over the space directly behind its current store, and work is expected to start in March, and finish no later than September 26, which is the end of the fiscal year for the Austin-based grocery store chain.

 "The store's nine years old, and it's doing very well, but it's time to put a new dress on the lady," Hilge says. "So we're updating the store, adding more features that have been successful in other stores we've done."

According to Hilge, 80 per cent of the existing store is being refurbished, with a pasta bar and a sit-down restaurant being added, complete with organic alcohol service.

With their second atrium, Whole Foods hopes to offer 7am calisthenics in conjunction with Hazelton Lanes, as well as chef demonstrations.
The architect for the project is Markham's Petroff Partnership Architects.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Hilge

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

Toronto's bridgework continues to shut down or slow down roads across the city.

This past weekend, the westbound lanes of the Gardiner Expressway were closed from the Humber River to Spadina Avenue from 11pm on Saturday until 9am on Sunday.

"We're removing some of the overhang formwork and installing some conduits on the underside of the bridges," says Mike Laidlaw, acting manager of structures and expressways.

The overhang formwork he refers to is the superstructure erected to aid in the earlier work done of the bridge, which was demolished in April, and whose reconstruction was almost completed before the winter weather halted further substantial work until spring.

Part of a larger $14-million contract, the work that was conducted last weekend, and which will continue into next weekend during similar hours, cost between $250,000 and $300,000.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mike Laidlaw

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

Today's the last day to get an advance look at the designs for the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum, being built on a large campus of land between 49 and 77 Wynford Drive.

On display on the first floor of the Ontario Science Centre since Dec. 23, the exhibit is free. According to theismaili.com, the website of the international Ismaili community, "The Aga Khan Museum will be a museum of Muslim culture that will seek to address the gap of knowledge about Islam and create opportunities for dialogue and understanding between peoples and cultures. The first of its kind in North America, it will bring together visitors locally and internationally, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to explore their connected heritage and celebrate their unique backgrounds."

According to Councillor John Parker, in whose ward the buildings are going up, the exhibit is "well worth viewing."

The $300-million, 6.8 hectare project is set to be completed in 2013.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Councillor John Parker

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

Scadding Court and Alexandra Park will be holding two public meetings at the Scadding Court Community Centre to discuss plans and priorities for redevelopment of the areas.

"Scadding Court Community Centre, the Sanderson Library and the Alexandra Park Neighbourhood Learning Centre are starting to plan for the future by exploring options for redeveloping the important community assets at Bathurst and Dundas," the ward's councillor, Adam Vaughan, said in a Dec. 23 email to his constituents.

The development process is currently in its first phase, a feasibility study conducted by Levitt Goodman Architects, begun in October, of which these meetings are a part. Issues such as traffic, parking, zoning and community space requirements are all being considered, and the study is due to be issued next month.

After that, there will be a business planning phase, and finally a decision about what tack to take, which will involve more community consultations. There is no announced time line for this third phase, or for the redevelopment itself.

The meetings will convene on Jan. 26 at 6pm, and on Feb. 1 at 7pm. Scadding Court Community Centre is at 707 Dundas Street West, on the southeast corner of Bathurst and Dundas.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Councillor Adam Vaughan

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

As Torontonians get more and more environmentally conscientious, recycling, composting, not using plastic bags for their groceries, a second-wave sort of feeling can set in. Are we doing enough? Or are all these little things we do just that, little things that don't add up to enough to have any real effect?

And this questioning can extend to the corporate world, as well. If a hotel says it's being green by using low-flow showerheads, or an office building toots its own horn because it turns off all its lights at night, are they greening, or greenwashing?

According to Doug Webber, the green building practice leader for Halsall, an engineering and consulting firm that helps corporate clients use their energy more efficiently, turning off an office tower's lights at night is no small beer.

According to Webber, an average tower tenant expends about a quarter of its energy on lighting.  So if they only turn on their lights between 7am and 6pm, instead of keeping them on all night, "That's 50 per cent of the hours that the lights are off. You could save 12 per cent of your energy just by turning the lights off at night."

Another quarter of corporate tenant's energy tends to go to information technology, so turning computers off -- and reducing the number of servers that need to be on all the time, whenever possible -- when they're not in use can have a similar effect.

"One of the problems with accusations of greenwashing, if they're not careful, is that they can throw cold water on what might be legitimately good first steps," says Chris MacDonald, visiting scholar with the Rotman School of Business's Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics who also runs the Business Ethics Blog "A company may be trying to get some credit for doing the right thing, but then figures they're getting crapped on, so they'll stop."

For his part, MacDonald reserves the term for companies he thinks "have just an atrocious track record and they're really holding up something tiny that isn't central to what they do."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Doug Webber, Chris MacDonald

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

Behind the now familiar hoarding on the Yonge Street facade of the Toronto Reference Library, aka Metro Reference, the glazed glass wall is going in at street level, one of several renovations and expansions that will bring the famously inward-looking building out into the street.

According to Linda Mackenzie, director of research and reference libraries, there will also be a chain cafe and a gift shop that, she says, "will add some commercial activity on Yonge Street."

The entrance is also being reconceived by the Moriayama and Teshima, the building's original architects, in the form of two stacked transparent cubes that will serve as a welcome lobby, a gathering place and ultimately a place for library events.

"We did have a very recessed entrance under a canopy," Mackenzie says, "and now the two cubes combined will reach out to the edge of the property, and the curtain wall along Yonge will [also] be at the property line."

In the planning stages since 2000, and under construction for two years, the next phase of the Eastern Construction-managed $34-million project to be completed will be the expanded main floor, which is due to open in the spring.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Linda Mackenzie

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

Just as concerns were rising that the city was becoming less interested in what's come to be known as tower renewal -- the greening and refurbishment of our many 1960s and 70s residential slabs -- the province stepped in. The first tangible result was released at the end of November in the form of a tower study focused not just on Toronto or the GTA, but the entire Greater Golden Horseshoe.

"It's a sort of mapping exercise," says Paul Kulig of Regional Architects, which was involved in the study, "that for the first time identifies the scope of the towers and the issues associated with them beyond the boundaries of Toronto."

According to the report, there are 1,925 towers in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which makes the region unique in North America, and more similar to parts of Asia, Europe and the former Soviet Union where massive development took place in the wake of the second world war and the installation of controlled economies.

According to the executive summary, "The focus of this study is two-fold. The first objective is to analyze and catalogue this housing resource to better understand its current role within the GGH. The second objective is to examine the potential for Tower Neighbourhood Renewal to support the realization of provincial priorities, such as implementing the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, creating a network of regional rapid transit, conserving energy, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) production, reducing poverty, providing affordable housing, and building a green economy."

According to Kulig, the study is the first step in the renewal of towers across the Golden Horseshoe, the province taking its lead from work championed by Mayor Miller.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul Kulig

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

Some new business owners like a clean slate, wiping whatever came before unsentimentally away in pursuit of their own brand of success.

Peter Lilly is not that kind of business owner.

When he decided to expand his Sweet Pete's bike shop business into the Annex from its west Bloor beginnings, he decided that the old Tap bar would be the perfect place.

 "I've lived in Toronto for about 20 years," he says, "and I can remember being a patron of that bar a long time ago, so there was a bit of an attachment there."

So when you stop by, you'll see the old neon tap sign above the door. "We're going to restore that in the spring when the sign makers can get up to do the job," he says. He even kept the taps themselves, though he's not sure what he's going to do with those yet.

Which is not to say he just moved into the old space as is. "It was in pretty rough shape," he says of the old bar, which, he says, hadn't been in business for at least 8 months before he stepped into the place. "The basement was just filled with clutter, old paperwork and desks and freezers that were still running with food in them. It was insane how much junk there was."

The building had been built in three stages, with different coloured brick in different sections of the interior, so he hired Peter Woodworth of The Brick Painters to paint each brick individually to achieve some consistency. (Lilly's contractor was Brian Zahra.)

It took about $125,000 and three months to finish the 1,400 square foot space, which now includes bamboo floors, new insulation and, shortly, a solar panel. But as far as Lilly's concerned, it's been worth it. "It's just a really, really, cool space," he says.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Lilly

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

The walls have gone up on Toronto's second Whole Foods. It's being built in a section of the old Wal-Mart parking lot at Square One in Mississauga, and this week, the ceilings, which are also mostly up, will be joined to the walls in time, Whole Foods' Toronto man hopes, to beat most of the winter's snows.

"We're going full-tilt ahead," says Peter Hilge, Metro store team leader. "We're working 24 hours a day on that site."

The 40,000 square foot store -- the same size as the current flagship shop in Yorkville's Hazelton Lanes -- is being built as a separate structure on the Square One property, designed by Petroff.

The store will include all the regular Whole Foods amenities, but will also be adding more windows to the back rooms, so people can see what's going on.

"One of the things a lot of people don't understand is a lot of the things are done from scratch in each store," Hilge says. "We want the people to be more a part of what we're doing in Square One."

The opening date for the store has been set for July 28, 2011.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Hilge

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

An important part of the first phase of Regent Park's revitalization formally opened on Dec. 1, after several months of getting-to-know-you time that one planning and development co-ordinator says was absolutely necessary.

"There was a lot of confusion, and a lot of questions being asked by residents and other community members," says Alison Chan, who works for the Toronto Centre of Community Learning and Development, which is behind the Regent Park Centre of Learning, of the tumultuous process of re-building a neighbourhood, "so we wanted to give ourselves time to be able to establish a presence in the community before we did a formal opening. You need to have people know who you are before you can celebrate the opening of your centre."

The Centre, on the ground floor of a new building at 540 Dundas Street East, which is connected to 246 and 252 Sackville, seniors and family residential buildings respectively, all owned by Toronto Community Housing.

Though the centre started out as a literacy organization, they have moved into more diverse areas of education, for which the 2,233 square foot centre, with its conference room, multipurpose room, computer lab and classroom, is designed to be a hub. The Dec. 1 launch included what they're calling a community dialogue on creating a healthy community, something they're planning on making a series. The first one stayed general, and included Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation Glen Murray, city councilor Pam McConnell, and architect Ken Greenberg. Chan estimates there were about 100 people in attendance.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Alison Chan

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

The urbanization of Markham continues with the launch of Sierra, a 143-unit, staggered 6-storey condo on Main Street in Markham Village.

Developed by the Sierra Group and designed by John Beresford of the Woodbridge firm of Flanagan Beresford and Patteson. The complex will significantly raise the density of the old neighbourhood.

"Condominiums epitomize to a certain extent urban living," says Sierra president Morris Kansun, "the idea of living in a higher density area where you walk downstairs and all the amenities are there without having to get into your car. Condominium living is downtown living, but so many condos today are built in Greenfield sites where you still have to get in your car."

The condo, known as 68 Main, will be built on the site of a 1960s strip mall, across the street from a community centre and in the middle of a 19th-century main street that's still an active retail strip.

Kansun expects to break ground this summer, and for his building to be ready to occupy by late 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Morris Kansun

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