Development News

After a year's closure, Jimmie Simpson Recreation Centre and Pool had its official re-opening last week in Leslieville with a whole new lease on life.

Closed since last August, the building had problems with its doors, paint, ceilings, pool, mechanical and electrical infrastructure, its air conditioning and lighting. That's all been fixed now, at a cost of $1 million, with work ending June 19.

"It's a priority centre," says Kelvin Seow, Toronto East York District community recreation manager, of the building at 870 Queen Street East. "The community has missed it. We tried to re-locate as much as we could to Matty Eckler and other local centres, but it's such a big centre, that it was tough."


Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Kelvin Seow

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Smithfield Park in Rexdale has had its playground equipment replaced at a cost of $110,000.

The old steel equipment was removed and upgraded to a steel and plastic combination with wood fibre surfacing to allow, according to spokeswoman Suzan Hall, for accessibility.

"The Park re-opening was a great success," Hall says of the ceremony held last week. "The children just swarmed the playground and the parents were very pleased."

Work began in late July on the project, which was funded in part by the Recreational Infrastructure Canada (RINC) program, and was completed on Aug. 23.

The new equipment includes structures aimed at juniors (ages 2-5), seniors (5-12), as well as swings and spring toys for toddlers.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Suzan Hall

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After more than 30 years operating out of an old gas station, the ambulance station at 643 Eglinton West is getting a new home.

After the old place was demolished in June of last year, and the soil reclaimed over the next several months, construction began in March on a brand new Emergency Medical Services station to serve the area between Keele and Eglinton and Sunnybrook Hospital.

"We're planning to garage three or four vehicles indoors when it opens," says David Ralph, the commander of program development and service quality. The previous facility only allowed for two.

The $2.6-million project, for which the steel framing began last week, is expected to be completed in December.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: David Ralph

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Work on the 2km stretch of Bloor Street from Keele to South Kingsway is half complete. The work, which will replace and repair water mains, sanitary sewers, storm sewers and combined sewers, is projected to cost $7.6 million.

"The water mains leak," says Gordon MacMillan, the city's director of design and construction for linear infrastructure. "The joints start to fall apart, there's concern about collapse, so they're all being replaced."

But October, when this work is slated for completion, will only mark a brief respite for area drivers.

"Next year, we are going to be reconstructing the road, so this is just getting the undergrounds done this year," MacMIllan says.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gordon MacMillan

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 long-awaited report on TTC customer service was released last week.

Hotelier Steven O'Brien, chair of the customer service advisory panel that compiled the report, announced 78 specific improvement recommendations contained within the report, which was spurred, in part, by various dissatisfactions among customers and the media with employees sleeping on the job, or stopping mid-route to buy coffee and doughnuts.

"Over the past decade, the Commission has done an excellent job of expanding service for riders and growing the system to meet demand with limited resources," said the mayor, David Miller, in a press release. "But frontline customer service has not improved at the same rate. We need to get the balance back so that we are providing both top-notch transit and customer services."

The panel was struck in March, and most of whichever recommendations are adopted by the TTC are only expected to be implemented within 24 to 36 months.

Recommendations included better customer service training, information kiosks at stations, "Sorry, Bus Full" messages on the front of buses, and a simplified transfer system.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Stuart Green


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Work began the first week of July on a new mid-rise condo tower aimed at young professionals that could seal the increasingly popular real estate notion that King East is the new King West.

The King East, designed by Core Architects, developed by Brad Lamb's Lamb Development Corp. and managed by 59 Project Management, will be a modern, glass and pre-cast concrete construction, which Philip Marsland, head of 59, calls "very sleek."

"The whole area has really improved a lot over the past couple of years," he says of the once downscale neighbourhood, caught between the business district and Corktown, home to furniture and design shops but with little residential development of note.

The 14-storey, 215-unit building at 330 King East will also have two floors of retail totalling about 20,000 square feet.

The building is slated for a February, 2012 completion.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Philip Marsland

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Cube is finally nearing completion on College Street just east of Ossington.

Originally called N-Blox, when it had a slightly grander design, developer Jim Neilas cancelled immediately after its 207 launch due to overwhelming lack of interest. Within months, he had a new design, similar to N-Blox, by Roland Rom Colthoff and Richard Witt, both now with Raw Design.

Neilas, of Neilas Developments, is a former lawyer with an ambition to increase the density of the city's popular strips. "I'm tired of being hit over the head with the bible of Jane Jacobs, he told John Bentley Mays in 2008, describing his frustration of city council and community groups trying to block development.

Set for completion by the end of this year, with occupancy as early as January, the 21-unit, 6-storey black building already stands out in Little Italy.

"CUBE is best known for its contemporary front fa�ade that faces College," says architect Colthoff. "It's a simple expression of the units behind it...some are two storey and some are one storey. We wanted a clean and open design that had visual interest, this was a simple way of achieving that."

Units range from 983 square feet to 1,083, with prices from $516,075 to $635,900.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Roland Rom Colthoff

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Waterfront Toronto took another step into the perilous business of neighbourhood creation last week when it announced that it had chosen real estate firm Hines to develop its biggest site yet.

Located between Lower Sherbourne and Parliament streets south of Queens Quay, the site is owned by the city. The plan, which involves architects Cesar Pelli and Stanton Eckstut, will result in 1,700 homes, along with retail, entertainment and office space enough for 2,400 workers.

The plan is being presented to city council today and tomorrow, and if approved, the first occupancies are expected in 2014. The whole project is set for a 2021 completion.

"The Bayside development is another major step forward in the complete revitalization of our waterfront and it will be an integral part of East Bayfront, which is already taking shape into a showcase 21st-century community," says John Campbell, president and CEO of Waterfront Toronto, in a press release.

The development will trigger about $20 million in fees to the city, and is being backed by $800 million in private sector investment.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Samantha Gileno

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Parliament Street is joining the city's not-so-exclusive club of construction zones this month, while the kilometer between King and Gerrard is being dug up for a streetcar rail replacement and complete reconstruction.

"We typically just resurface," says Gordon MacMillan, the city's director of design and construction for linear infrastructure. "But it gets to a point when the sub-base is not strong enough, and you're just wasting your money. It's like putting a new roof on a house that's falling down."

The project will ultimately cost $4.2 million and is scheduled for completion by December.

But the worst may already be over with last week's completion of the work on the stretch's busy Queen intersection.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gordon MacMillan

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Thanks to two tennis organizations, kids at Jane and the 401 now have three resurfaced courts in Maple Leaf Park.

Tennis Canada and the Doug Philpott Inner-City Children's Tennis Fund (which caters to mostly outer-city kids, as it happens) are, among other things, devoted to smashing the stereotype that tennis is for rich kids.

"This is something that Tennis Canada has done a few times," says spokeswoman Sarah Grossman. "Our mandate is to get kids playing as much as we can, and this is just one extra way to fulfill our mission, providing an opportunity where it wouldn't otherwise be possible. I would say we've definitely gone a long way in terms of breaking down those stereotypes."

Maple Leaf Park is just south of Tennis Canada's Jane and Steeles offices.

The mayor and pros Bob and Mike Bryan were on hand for the official opening during the Rogers Cup.

As a result of the refurbishment, the Philpott fund's summer tennis program will be extending its program to include Maple Leaf Park as its 13th location.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Sarah Grossman


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Louise Russo Park is getting new playground equipment as part of a rash of playground and park improvements being funded in-part by soon-to-expire federal funds.

The equipment at former Flindon Park, re-named four years ago in honour of Russo, who was paralyzed by a fragment of a bullet meant for someone else at California Sandwiches in 2004, has been designed with disabled children in mind.

"It's a very old park," says Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, in whose ward it is, "and it was at the top of the list to get a new, freshly built playground."

Mammoliti estimates that the cost of the refurbishment, which was officially unveiled yesterday, was about $110,000.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Giorgio Mammoliti


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Strathburn Park, 6 acres in the Weston and Sheppard area, got a $175,000 facelift this month, including a new playground, with money from developers and the federal government.

Though the contract was awarded last fall, construction didn't begin until May.

"This is the one community park in that residential area," says David Nosella, the city's supervisor of capital projects, describing the area as stably residential with exclusively single-family dwellings. "It serves the whole area from the 401 up to Sheppard."

According to Nosella, there was $100,000 set aside in the capital budget for improvements to the park, and the other $75,000 came from what's known as Section 37 funds, so-called for the city's program allowing developers height or density increases in return for tangible community benefits.

The project is one of about 60 being hastily completed across the city in the final months of the construction season before the deadline for the federal stimulus money expires in March.

The playground was officially re-opened yesterday.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: David Nosella

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].

CORRECTION: The original version of this story misstated the closest intersection to the park as Warden and Sheppard.

The Toronto Community Housing development known as Hydro Block, just off Baldwin Street, got a new playground and community garden this month thanks in part to a ward-specific program that collects 10 per cent of the value of all development to make improvements to the communities.

The $65,000 project was only half-funded by ground-breaking, when councillor Adam Vaughan was able to announce a top-up from his fund.

"We're the only ward that does it," Vaughan says, "but other wards are starting to look at it."

In addition to a new playground by Bienenstock Natural Playgrounds, the park got several large vegetable gardens, which will be tended by young people in the neighbourhood, who will be paid by TCH for their efforts.

"It was great to watch the kids more interested in planting seeds than playing on the slide," says Vaughan of the opening earlier this month. "But they've got both there now."

Home Depot also donated gardening tools and sprinklers.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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A third generation family-owned and �run Italian jewellery business, operating in Woodbridge for the past 20 years, has made the move to Yorkville, almost doubling its selling space and bringing an indie-luxe touch to a neighbourhood used to buying its chains from chains.

"We've been looking for a downtown location for quite some time," says Giorgio Bandiera, co-owner and manager of both locations of Bandiera Jewellers.

Construction took over three months, and the shop, at 123 Yorkville Avenue, opened in July, taking over the space previously occupied by the Arctic Bear knick-knack shop and La Borsa bags.

Bandiera says that all the design and interior elements were done and produced in Italy and shipped over here and installed by an Italian team supervised by Milan-based design firm BNP.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Giorgio Bandiera

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].

Starbank Developments has run into some opposition to its plans for a 1.25-acre site at 1860 Bayview Avenue, the location of the former Brennan Pontiac Buick dealership.

"It's gone to committee twice," says Councillor John Parker, whose ward begins across the street from the proposed retail development, which Parker has been led to believe will include a Whole Foods grocery store. "The committee deferred its decision. The applicant appealed the deferral, which gave rise to the debate to whether a deferral is an appealable event. Before that was fully adjudicated, the applicant put forward another application in July, and that was refused, and that refusal has been appealed to the OMB."

As Parker describes it, the community's opposition to the plan is not an opposition to a new Whole Foods so much as the methods he says Starbank is using to get approval, Instead of applying for a re-zoning, which would trigger a public consultation, they are seeking a minor variance, which could avoid any input from the residents of the two affected wards.

Parker is interested in the development because of the increased traffic he expects any large retail site would generate in his ward as well as its neighbour.

Parker believes the project proposal is for 50,000 square feet on four levels, two underground. Starbank's website describes it as 80,000 square feet on two levels.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: 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].