City Building : Development News

The latest residential addition to the West Queen West neighbourhood got underway this past week with the demolition of a vacant warehouse at 2 Gladstone, next door to the Gladstone Hotel.

In its place will be an 8-storey, 54-unit condominium adding a total of 38,000 square feet of residential space to the booming strip, estimated to cost $18 million. The building will be environmentally friendly  but will not, according to the developer, be applying for any of the increasingly popular LEED certifications.

"To be quite honest, making these small buildings work financially is difficult," says Streetcar Developments vice president Jeanhy Shim, who explains that many buildings costs are fixed, whether the building in question is 8 storeys or 58, meaning the costs in smaller buildings have to be spread over fewer units. "So the having to add the cost of LEED, to be honest, is quite onerous."
(Outside agencies have estimated that LEED certification can add as much as 5 per cent to the cost of small scale projects such as Streetcar's.)

Despite this, however, 2 Gladstone will feature dual flush toilets, low VOC paints, low-flow faucets, locally sourced and produced materials, a green roof, bicycle storage, and a Zip or AutoShare facility.

And, as the name suggests, 2 Gladstone will, like every other Streetcar project according to Shim, be on a streetcar line.
The building is slated to be ready by October, 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jeanhy Shim, Streetcar Development

It's been an odd project, a housing assessment and referral centre for the homeless in the middle of the city's entertainment district. And it's been made even odder by the fact that it's been on the build for more than three years. According to city staff, there have been some structural problems with the planned smoking space on the roof. According to Councillor Adam Vaughan, whose ward it's in, the problem is with the city's ability to manage its capital projects.

Vaughan says the official word is that it will be completed soon. "Officially, it's a matter of weeks, which is usually code for a matter of months." But he says he expects it will be finished before summer, complete with the rooftop terrace, which he refers to approvingly as "a private amenity space, like the condominiums in the area have," and a small public parkette in front.

The building will also house a 40-bed shelter for single men who, according to the city's manager of partnership development and support Patricia Anderson, "for whatever reason are reluctant to use the emergency shelter system."

According to Vaughan, the project has cost a little under the $10 million the federal government advanced for it, with a little under $5 million to purchase the building and property, and about $4 million so far for its extensive renovation.

The assessment and referral service is currently being run out of 67 Adelaide Street East while the city waits for the completion of Peter Street.

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Patricia Anderson, Adam Vaughan

After a greater than average degree of secrecy and a not unrelated greater than average degree of anticipation, Origin, chef Claudio Aprile's latest restaurant, will open next week, according to Paul Oberman, president and CEO of Woodcliffe Corporation, which has been in charge of the restoration of the 105 and 107 King East location at the southeast corner of Church.

The easternmost of the two is one of the oldest buildings in the city, built between 1836 and 1841. Both 107 and 109 were the site of one of early Toronto's great unsolved murder mysteries, when a dead man was found slumped against the back wall in the laneway. In the 1960s, the upper floors of 107 were known as The Pit and were where Toronto artist Tom Hodgson, known for his wild parties, kept his studio.

"The space has been designed uniquely for him," Oberman says. "It's not a conventional design. He's been very personally involved in every aspect of it. It's been fun."

The  year-long restoration, which Oberman describes as a combination of restoration and adaptive reuse, included putting in full basements for the two buildings and opening up the walls inside to bring the two spaces together. "We're just scrambling now to complete the terrace, now that the weather is upon us," he says of the wraparound patio space for the corner lot.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul Oberman

Streetcar Developments, the company known for injecting much of the recent condo energy that's been pulsing through Corktown, just opened sales for their latest project, Sync Lofts, across the Don.

"This is our third development between Carlaw and the DVP,' says Jeanhy Shim, Streetcar's VP of sales and marketing (*and former president of condo consultancy Urbanation). "Like all the neighbourhoods we build in, we're expecting this neighbourhood to improve, and expecting to help with that improvement."

The site at the corner of Queen and Carroll is currently a parking lot and before that was a small shopping plaza that Streetcar demolished when they acquired it five years ago. It's across the street from their Edge Lofts.

Sync will be a $30-million, 8-storey building with 98 suites, priced from $179,900 for the studios to just under $500,000 for the largest, which are 946 square feet. Seventy-five per cent of the units sold just this past week, according to sales manager Man Ling Lau. "They're calling us the next King West," she says.

Construction will begin later this year, with occupancy currently set for July, 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Streetcar Developments, Jeanhy Shim

A new developer is building its first residential project, auspiciously designed by three-time Governor General's Award-winning architect Stephen Teeple, across the street from Bayview Village Park.

Teeple, best known in Toronto for his Graduate House (1999) on the northeast corner of Harbord and Spadina (on which he collaborated with Morphosis), is introducing his characteristic linearity into a part of town developer Symmetry's vice president describes as architecturally neglected.

"Most developers tend to play it safe and go with brick and stucco," says Sayf Hassan. "We have so many of the same -- it's not even architecture, it's pseudo-architecture, Victorian and Georgian homes -- up here, you do need variety."

The Linea townhouses, only two of the 11 of which remain unsold (and priced at $999,000), will have limestone cladding, zinc roofs, wood panelling around the windows, and each will be equipped with a private elevator.

Hassan says he has his eye on his second residential project, which he says he'll be announcing in about a month, once the current $4-$4.5-million project has begun construction.

"We're always on the lookout for great infill projects," he says, "because I think that's the way development is going."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Symmetry, Sayf Hassan

Amid all the condo towers popping up all over Yorkville over the past couple of years, developer Ken Zuckerman decided it was time for an elegant mid-rise to come out of the fray, but still not too far from the action. "It's 100 yards away from Yorkville," Zuckerman says, "but it could be 10 miles."

The site of Hazelton36 is the old St. Basil's Separate School at 34-38 Hazelton Avenue, less than a block north of Yorkville Avenue. Built in the 1920s, the building's fa�ade will remain, incorporated into the new 6-storey structure, according to Zuckerman, known around town for the well-received residential development at 113 Dupont.

Though the project was just announced and Zuckerman, who owns Zinc Construction, winner of an Ontario Association of Architects award for a home on Bishop Street in Yorkville, has not yet announced the architect, designers or unit prices, he will say that the suites will have 11- and 12-foot ceilings and will range from 1,700 to 6,000 square feet.

"They'll be condominiums of some scale," Zuckerman says, "but the building will be neatly camouflaged with terrace setbacks, so you won't really be able to see the building from the street when you're on it. We'll retain that residential feel."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ken Zuckerman

One of Toronto's first gourmet pizza places has expanded into the Annex. John's Italian Caffe, one of the two original Baldwin Street restaurants, has opened its third location at 1048 Bathurst Street, between Bloor and Dupont, in the old Telepizza space.

"We've always been catering and delivering to the Annex," says Marco Henao, brother of John's owner, Julian Henao, who bought it seven years ago from founder John Lostracco. The Bathurst location, which is Marco's baby, is distinguished from the other two locations by its Italian-Latin American fusion menu. (The Henaos are Colombians raised in Venezuela and Canada.)

"We consider this one to be the restaurant," Henao says, "the Baldwin is the caf�, and the College location is just the pizzeria."

The 300 square foot space cost about $220,000 to renovate, and will soon, pending approvals and the arrival of spring, have a back patio.
According to Henao, he and his brother have spoken with the landlord and have plans to buy the building in the next few years and expand onto the second floor.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Marco Henao

If you've walked down the north side of Bloor Street between Avenue and Bay in the past couple of months and looked up, you will have noticed 101 Bloor West, a mid-size office tower with Cole Haan and Royal de Versailles as its ground-floor retail tenants, has been completely empty.

If  you thought it was destined to be another condo conversion, you would have been right, for a few months. But after a New York developer decided the market had turned, it was sold to Kingsett Capital, the company that owns 155 Cumberland across the street. According to leasing agent Michael Spence at CBRE, Kingsett considered turning it into a condo briefly, but then decided "it's more of an office play," and turned to CBRE to lease it out.

Construction started this weekend, with a large crane blocking Bloor, preparing the building for the two new tenants, the Ministry of Youth and Child Services and the Ontario College of Teachers, the latter of which is moving down from its current offices at 121 Bloor West.

According to Jeff Friedman, CBRE's lead on the deal, the papers were signed in June, and the tenants have recently taken possession.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: CBRE, Michael Spence

If you can't take it down, then pretty it up.

The Gardiner Expressway's been an albatross around the neck of the city's waterfront development for generations. Needed as a traffic artery, it bifurcates the city, separating the rest of Toronto both physically and psychically from one of its most potentially attractive features.
But Waterfront Toronto today announced a way to have overhead highways and play with them, too. Thanks to Vancouver planning, urban design and landscape architecture firm Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, $5.3 million and a winning 2015 Pan Am Games bid to speed everything up, the West Don Lands are about to get the city's first (and the nation's largest) underpass park.

It will be located under the Eastern Avenue overpass, near where it meets Richmond and Adelaide streets between Cherry Street and Bayview Avenue, a few blocks north of the main part of the Gardiner. The park will be put together with various sustainable elements such as LED lighting, recycled rubber ground surfaces and re-used cobblestones from underneath a nearby part of Eastern Avenue. Complete with half basketball courts, a caf�, community gardens and playground, the 1.05 hectare park will provide the first meaningful, enjoyable connection between both sides of the overpass.

Set near the site of the Pan Am Games athletes village, the park is an early step in the reclamation of the formerly industrial West Don Lands, a project that also includes the River City private sector housing community that will begin construction later this year, and the Don River Park, a 7 hectare community centrepiece scheduled to break ground this summer.

"The design takes full advantage of the existing site's eccentricities and its free-for-the-taking weather protection," says lead designer Greg Smallenberg in a press release today, "transforming something that might otherwise be incidental into a delightful urban patch."

Work on Underpass Park is slated to start in May or June, with a Spring, 2011 completion.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Samantha Gileno, Waterfront Toronto

There's no doubt that Toronto is in the middle of another one of its big-thinking phases. The last one, which spanned the 60s and 70s, bequeathed us things like St James Town, Alexandra Park, and scores of slab buildings reaching out to the airport and beyond. Projects like the Lawrence Heights revitalization, whose draft plan was announced last week by Mayor Miller and Toronto Community Housing (TCH), will determine whether this phase's legacy, which also includes CityPlace, the Regent Park reconstruction and Concord Adex's planned $2-billion Park Place development of 42 acres along Sheppard between Bessarion and Leslie stations, leaves the city a better place or not.

The plan, which aims to begin demolition of the 1,208 social housing units in the 100-acre area by next year, will add between 4,300 and 4,800 market-price units, in addition to replacing the demolished social housing units. All of the approximately 3,500 people who currently lives in one of those units will have the right to live in the new community, with their moving costs covered by TCH.

As with most of the city's newdevelopments, Lawrence Heights will be a green project.

"Revitalization is about much more than just replacing housing that is in poor repair," says Keiko Nakamura, CEO of Toronto Community Housing, in a press release. "We're using the opportunity to incorporate green technology into new buildings and work with partners to improve parks, schools and transit and increase local jobs, training and community services. It will also mean the community has access to shops and services."
 
Writer: Bert Archer

Source: TorontoCommunity Housing

The Royal Bank has opened a branch in Regent Park. According to them, it's the first ever financial institution in this long beleaguered and now hopefully revitalized neighbourhood, built in the1940s as Canada's first social housing project.

Doors first opened for business in this 3,700 square foot bank on January 18, and it officially launched earlier this week. It will employ 9 people, of whom four live in Regent Park.

"We made a very concerted effort to hire from the community," says Melinda Henderson, a communications manager with the bank.

The branch, located on the ground floor of the new One Cole condominium building at the corner of Dundas and Parliament,will also be powered by Bullfrog, a 100 per cent green energy provider.
 
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: RBC

A seven-tower development by Tridel, which began construction this month, will be the first community in the country to seek LEED certification as a whole under the new LEED Neighbourhood Development (ND) program.

According to developer Tridel, Metrogate, in Scarborough-Agincourt near Kennedy and the 401 (next to the Delta hotel), will consist of six residential buildings, one office building, and a series of townhouses. Solaris I and II are currently under construction. Each will be 39 storeys, with 435 units in the first, and 445 in the second. They'll be ready to occupy later this year or early next.

The site is 17 acres, once occupied by the Toronto Sufferance Transit Terminal and originally to be developed by Canderel Property Management, will consist, when finished, of 1,776,000 square feet of residential and office space, with about 2,100 condos. The site will also ultimately house a 1.65 acre park and two day care facilities.

The four basic requirements for LEED ND designation are smart location and linkage, design, green construction and innovation. On this site, Tridel reused all the concrete from the demolition of the transit terminal as subsurface road material, and the community is built on a site that's been flagged for future subway and GO expansion.
 
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Tridel

Correction: The original version of this story listed Solaris I as just beginning construction and Solaris II breaking ground in August. They are both currently under construction. Yonge Street was provided with incorrect information.

300 Front, the latest project by architectsAlliance co-founder Rudy Wallman, begins construction this month.

Consisting of a 49-storey tower and a 15-storey loft building, the project at the corner of John Street will have a total of 683 units, with gardens on street level at the southeast corner of the property, which has been a parking lot for some time.

"Its main selling feature is that it's at the heart of the entertainment district," says Tridel spokesman Samson Fung,"and it's one of the highest in the area, so we expect it to appeal to affluent, younger buyers." The building is approximately 70 per cent sold, according to Fung.

The gardens were designed by Montreal landscape architect Claude Cormier. "To give the building a signature presence, we inscribed its address � 300 � directly into the design," he says of the design on his website. "The roadways and sidewalks of the site make up the digits, clearly visible from the high vantage points in the nearby surroundings.

"Like the logo on a Fendi purse, the site-integrated icon is woven through with an intricate network of paving."

Wallman, who was also a principal behind the new Four Seasons and Lumiere on Bay, is one of the city's homegrown starchitects, who along with Peter Clewes (with whom he's worked at Architectsalliance), Quadrangle's Brian Curtner and David Pontarini of Hariri Pontarini have put a lasting stamp on the city during the recent condo boom.
 
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Tridel, Claude Cormier

We've been seeing condo towns -- those things that look like town houses but are, inside, stacked like condos -- around the city for a few years now. But now Grand Metropolitan Homes, Dewbourne Developments and Paradigm Architecture and Design are building the "loft houses."

"We wanted to do something that hadn't really been done in Toronto," says Adam Ochshorn, a principal with Forest Hills developer Grand Metropolitan, who says he went to Chicago and New York to research loft forms before embarking on this project, which will break ground at 483 Dupont Street in May. He says he's not seen anything quite like this combination of house and loft aesthetic anywhere else.

The $350,000-$700,000 loft houses in three storeys totalling 30,000 square feet of residential space, will have 11-foot ceilings, polished concrete floors and outdoor spaces on every level, including rooftop terraces.

According to Andrew Zimet, the Chestnut Park Real Estate broker who's been selling the spaces, three of the four ground-level units, designed to allow for retail space according to an agreement reached with councillor Adam Vaughan's office and the Seaton Village Residents Association, have initially been sold to people who will be using them as residences, including a landscape architect who may also be practicing out of the space.

The first units will be ready in May, 2011.

 
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Grand Metropolitan Homes

Thompson Hotels announced last week that their first hotel outside of the US, the Freed Developments project, designed by Core Architects, at 550 Wellington Street West, will be opening in May.

With 16 floors and 102 suites, Thompson also announced the hotel will have a Scarpetta restaurant on its ground floor.

The hotel will be attached to a 336 unit condo project, also by Freed, making this the first time Thompson has jumped on the condo-hotel bandwagon that's been so attractive and, for the most part, successful for other hoteliers like the Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton.

"Toronto shares many of the same attributes as our most successful market," said Thompson co-owner Jason Pomeranc in a press release.

According to Anthony Decarli, Freed's director of development, a second restaurant, Wabora, known to Muskoka cottagers for its Bracebridge location, will also be opening in the building, though as a separate entity from the hotel and the condo.

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Freed Development, Thompson Hotels