Development News

Bloor and Old Mill is about to get its second condo.

Across the street and a little east of the area's only current condo, the low-rise Brule, Tridel has acquired the lot between the two GM dealerships and will build a 12-storey, 270-unit condominium at 1 Old Mill Drive.

"There's very little condo stock here," says Jim Ritchie, senior vice president at Tridel, of the west Bloor West Village neighbourhood. "We're surrounded by quite a bit of variety of housing, but it's on the more expensive side."

So while saying his new project will not be exactly downscale, the 650 to 2,300 square foot units will likely start in the low $300,000s and appeal to working couples who like the 90-second proximity to Jane station.

The design by Kirkor Architects, as Ritchie describes it, eschews the current glass trend for a pre-cast concrete look that allows the building to stay more in keeping with its residential surroundings.

Tridel expects to launch the building, called One Old Mill, by the end of October, and be in the ground, if sales go as expected, by December, 2011 or January, 2012, and be ready for occupancy by the end of the summer of 2013.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jim Ritchie

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A site-specific sculpture installed on a hill in High Park in the Summer of Love is getting a different specific site, and a new lease on life, thanks to the city's cultural office, art consultant Karen Mills and her employer, developer Concord Adex.

The 1967 sculpture, called "Flower Power," was Mark di Suvero's first large-scale modernist piece in a career that has since been defined by them.

Over the years, the sculpture, made of steel I beams, deteriorated and was partially dismantled, though kept on display in the park close to a companion piece, di Suvero's "No Shoes."  According to Gabriel Leung, director of development for Concord Adex, he and Mills -- who is largely responsible for the presence of Douglas Coupland's art in City Place and elsewhere -- at first had trouble negotiating with the artist. "He wasn't very happy with the way his sculpture was delapidating in High Park," Leung says.

But they were eventually able to come to terms, and in 2008, the city and the developer made an arrangement that would see the large sculpture sent back to its creator's Long Island studio for restoration, and then placed alongside Linear Park in Concord Adex's City Place development in the old railway lands at a cost of $350,000 to the city. The developer donated the time of its landscape architect and engineer to prepare the new site. Flower Power was installed last week.

An officer with the city's cultural office, who asked that she not be quoted, said the site was a better location for the piece, allowing it to be more closely watched and better cared for.

No Shoes will also be restored and re-placed, though the city is not sure when or where yet.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: City of Toronto Culture

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The Peace Park, long the centre of Nathan Philips Square and home to its own eternal flame representing the city's commitment to world peace, is being moved to the west side of the square as part of the redesign of the whole square.

"The new Peace Garden is going to be able to accommodate larger crowds," says Sheila Glazer, manager of strategic policy and projects for the energy and strategic initiatives section of the city's facilities management division. "But at the same time, it will be a more intimate setting for smaller groups than it is in the middle."

She says that whenever there were big events in the square, the Peace Gardens tended to not only be hived off, but it was generally where any necessary generators were placed. "Not exactly a tranquil, peaceful setting," she says.

The idea to remove the gardens from its symbolically central position was controversial when the square's new design, the result of a design competition, was debated by council, according to Glazer, but it passed what Glazer described as an "ultimately necessary" part of the $46.8-million redesign project.

The relocation has begun, with an expected 2011 re-opening, and a further re-commemoration in 2012 when the whole square is completed.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Sheila Glazer

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Nesbitt Park almost lost out on its share of the federal funding that's been improving parks and adding playgrounds across the city over the past few months.

But Cheryl Drynan made sure they got what she figured they deserved.

As president of the Governor's Bridge Ratepayers Association, when she was told that her neighbourhood's park would only receive $25,000 to help clean up the after effects of some municipal sewer digging that had gone on in the area, she went to her councilor, Case Ootes, to see how they could get more.

"We developed a good working relationship with Councillor Ootes," Drynan says. "We just kept at them and at them and at them about money, and we got a call in January saying that he had sought out some of the federal funding and that we would be granted $100,000."

The neighbourhood next door, North Rosedale, was not so lucky, and had to raise money themselves to replace their equally elderly playground, according to Drynan.

The $100,000 bought a new playground, made of colourful child-safe plastic, to replace the old wood equipment which, Drynan says, was liable to splintering.

The ratepayers group debuted the equipment this past Sunday at their annual barbeque. They had planned to keep the equipment fenced off for the big unveiling, "but the kids were jumping the fence," she says, eager to get at the new equipment, so they had a soft opening last week.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Cheryl Drynan

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It's been 100 years since Viljo Revell was born, and 45 years this past Monday since his Canadian masterpiece, our City Hall, was opened, and the City Archives and the Toronto Society of Architects is putting on a series of exhibits and events to mark the occasion.

"City Hall had not just a huge impact on Toronto, but internationally," says Margo Welch, executive director of the Toronto Society of Architects, of the design that has ensured this almost half-century-old building is still referred to by most as New City Hall. "The opening of City Hall was really comparable to when the Guggenheim museum opened in Bilbao, it was just such an unusual building, so extraordinary, so specific. It kind of gave permission to local architects, to North American architects, to think more broadly, more interestingly."

The festivities began on Monday, with David Crombie, Frank Gehry and Lisa Rochon speaking in the council chamber. They'll wind up with a symposium, organized by Rochon, on the impact of Finnish architecture. In between, there's an exhibition in the rotunda featuring pictures of other of Revell's buildings, and artifacts from the original and controversial competition which Revell ended up winning.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Margo Welch


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It's a gorgeous wreck of a building, but unfortunately, the Westwood Theatre is useless, the land it's on tainted.

During the final session of the last city council, an agreement was reached to sell a portion of these lands � 4.5 out of a total of 19 � to the Ontario Realty Corporation in order to build a new provincial criminal court house and a 450-spot underground parking garage.

"It will certainly be an economic stimulus to the area," says city councilor Peter Milczyn, who remembers seeing Bambi at the Westwood more than 30 years ago. "We believe it will bring commercial development, offices for lawyers and whatnot, and restaurants and shops to serve them."

The court house will ultimately employ between 400 and 450 people.

The province will have to remediate the soil, which has been used industrially since at least the 1930s. Milczyn expects servicing the area -- drainage, electricity, etc. -- to commence in 2012, with construction set to begin a year later, with a tentative 2015 completion date.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Milczyn

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Construction has begun on a 7.3-acre park what will feature prominently in the new West Don Lands neighbourhood.

"It's the anchor of the West Don Lands," says James Roche, Waterfront Toronto's director of parks, design and construction of the $26.6-million federally and provincially funded project, "a large, huge park that will be connected to streets and pathways and trails along the Don river. The east-west streets of the new developments will all terminate at the park."

The park is being built on the nearly completed Flood Protection Landform, designed by the Toronto and Region Conservancy Authority and built by the Ontario Realty Corporation, which is meant to protect the West Don Lands from the Don's regular flooding, and the downtown core from the less frequent sort of extreme flooding we haven't seen for the last 60 years or so.

"We're long overdue for a similar storm to [Hurricane] Hazel," Roche says, "and this is a measure put in place for that."

Ground was broken last Wednesday, and construction has now begun on the pavilion, which should be completed next April. The southern portion of the park as a whole should be done by fall, 2011, according to Roche, and the rest of it by spring, 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: James Roche

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X2, the condo going up on the corner of Jarvis and Charles where the old Pizza Pizza corporate offices used to be, got a major variance from the city's planning committee to add an extra 7 storeys to their original 42-storey plan.

"X and X2 were exactly the same height," says Geoff Matthews, director of development for Great Gulf Condos, referring to the first phase of the two-phase project, "and we thought we had to punctuate the skyline somewhat."

According to Matthews, the committee heard the application in June and approved it in July with no extraordinary objections.

The building will now have a total of 557 units ranging from 416 to 912 square feet, and starting around $260,000.

Demolition began at the end of August.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Geoff Matthews

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Bridges are meant to connect, but this one managed to cut a community in half for years, until one city worker got an idea.

"In conversation with community members, this bridge would come up. I'd keep hearing about this bridge," says Andrea Raymond, a cultural outreach officer with the city's cultural services. She said the 871-foot-long Kingston Galloway/Orton Park bridge along Lawrence Avenue in Scarborough, with its narrow sidewalks and six lanes of traffic, was seen as boring and uninviting to local residents, who mostly walked over it rather than drove.

"One day when I was driving over the bridge," Raymond says, "I thought it might be a really good place for an art intervention."

Which is exactly what happened. For a total of $115,000, work began in July on a  huge mural by Rob Matejka and more than 20 local youth. It was completed at the end of August, and last weekend, it was the centerpiece of a local arts and community festival, which also included planting 800 native wildflowers in the part of Morningside Park that runs under the bridge.

The work was co-ordinated by the Scarborough Arts Council, Mural Routes and Evergreen.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Andrea Raymond


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The radical renovation of the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts will be ready for October 1, the 50th anniversary of its opening.

But better than the 189 re-milled brass doors, the 1,700 restored cherry panels, the fixed marble, the carpeting that now goes with the marble, the LED-lit coffered ceiling, the new Sony store and the removal of several architectural interventions that got in the way of architect Peter Dickinson's original design: there'll be a bar open from 4pm to midnight every day. And you won't even have to buy a ticket to a show to drink there.

The Balcony Bar sounds like it has definite new Toronto hang-out potential. It's part of a new approach the Sony Centre (aka the O'Keefe Centre, aka the Hummingbird Centre) to cater to the city it exists in now, rather than the one it was built into.

"The first show 50 years ago was Camelot," says Sony Centre CEO Dan Brambilla. "It represented the city at the time: homogenous. Now we have 232 cultures, so our programming is no longer focused on Broadway -- there are other theatres for that. We want to program to all the ethnicities in the city.

They want to feed them, too.

"Every night, the food will be paired with the show," Brambilla says. "If we have a Russian show, there'll be Russian food, and so on."

The idea is to bring the city into the Centre. The food will be cheap, the bar will be open to the public, and the whole building will offer free WiFi.

The renovation and restoration, which was budgeted at $30 million, was paid for by the sale of air rights to the developers of the new Libeskind condo going up next door.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Dan Brambilla

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Work has begun on the Flatiron Lots, one of two projects built by Lamb Developments in the city's east end.

Managed by 59 Project Management, Flatiron Lofts (11 storeys at 1201 Dundas East), and Work Lofts (12 storeys at 319 Carlaw Avenue), are sister buildings, separated only by a small strip of land.

"They're more in keeping with the old industrial nature of Leslieville," says  59's Philip Marsland. "They're made to look more like warehouse buildings, with red brick and big black windows."

Put in place where a Leather Ranch and an old gas station once stood, respectively, work began on Flatiron in June, and on the Work Lofts last February. Both are on 19-month construction cycles, meaning Work is expected to be completed by August, 2012, and Flatiron by December of the same year.

The first two levels will be commercial and retail space, while the rest of the space � 157 units in Work Lofts and 97 units in Flatiron � will be residential.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Philip Marsland

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The city has agreed, by a vote of 43-1 (the one being Rob Ford) to buy 4 acres of designated surplus land adjacent to an Etobicoke Park on Lothian Road from the Toronto District School Board to ensure local residents will continue to have access to the public green space.

"There's not a lot of four-acre sites in the heart of Etobicoke that are already city-owned and green," says the ward's councilor, Peter Milczyn, "so that's why I was so enthusiastic to retain this space as public property."

Whatever initial hesitance there was in acquiring the land -- and there was, according to Milczyn, years of negotiations behind this transaction -- stemmed from the $8-million price tag for land that, as far as taxpayers were concerned, was already theirs.

What finally sealed the deal was an agreement to revisit the purchase in three years to see if enough money had come into the city from nearby development through what's known as Section 37 to justify the purchase price. With units enough to house 5,000-7,000 people in the vicinity already in the works, Milczyn says he doesn't see it being a problem.

According to Milczyn, the space will likely have goal posts erected in the next year to make it more inviting as a soccer field.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Milczyn

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BC's Lower Mainland developer Onni Group is moving into the GTA in a big way, starting with Garrison at the Yards, the first phase of a three-phase condo project that will soon be overlooking Fort York.

Though the first building, a 207-unit structure Onni senior manager of GTA sales Sue Young describes as "boutiquey" and "intimate," is relatively small, it's only the first step in what Young describes as "our first foray into the Toronto market" and "the first of our master site plans."

The next two towers will be considerably larger, though no specific specifications are available yet.

The units will range from 395 to 1,100 square feet, with prices starting at $189,900, with sales to the public beginning Sept. 18. Designed by Wallman Architects on a formerly vacant site, The Yards will extend the orgy of development on the lower west side of the city, producing a sort of continuum with City Place and projects like West Harbour City.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Sue Young

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When the Junction Festival starts today, there'll be a new public space to celebrate in.

Locally known as the Cobblestone Public Space, it's a little bit of orphan land created when the city fiddled with traffic flow in the 1980s, cutting off a bit of St John's Road at Dundas. They put down cobblestone to make it pretty, planted a few trees, and a public space was born.

The space has now been reborn under the direction of Councillor Bill Saundercook and a neighbourhood committee -- including local architect Mark Rokowski from High Park Architects -- which has weeded the place, installed a gazebo and added seating in the form of about a dozen squared-off limestone boulders. The revitalized space debuted last Thursday.

The budget for the whole project was $94,902.23, plus HST.

"The whole atmosphere is quite different," Saundercook says.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Bill Saundercook

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Starting yesterday, GO buses will be able to bypass rush hour traffic by driving on the shoulder lanes of the Don Valley Parkway between Lawrence and just north of York Mills Road in both directions.

"This initiative is aimed at improving transit reliability and making it more attractive than the car," says Nazzareno Capano, manager of operation planning and policy for the city's transportation services, "and for the go transit customers, it will provide faster, more reliable service to them."

At a cost of about $120,000, new signs and pavement painting were added to the stretch of the DVP, which will enable GO buses to zip over onto them when traffic is slow. They'll be allowed to go as much as 20km faster than the speed of traffic.

It doesn't impact the highway capacity of the DVP as it exists now," Capano says. "We're not taking away a lane from motorists, we're just trying to improve the efficiency for GO transit along this corridor.

Capano says there are plans in the works  to add two more sections of GO express lanes to the DVP, between Pottery Road and Don Mills, and then from Don Mills to Eglinton, though he says those projects, which are currently being studied, will be much more extensive and expensive, involving new lighting and widening shoulders and railway bridges.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nazzareno Capano

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].