design : Development News

Everything but the landscaping has been completed on the new Mini Cooper headquarters and dealership at 20 Sunlight Park Road just southeast of Eastern Avenue and the DVP.

Designed by RAW with several environmental concerns in mind, the project is a series of black cubes set on a triangular lot, highlighted by linear yellow trim.

"It was an empty parking lot before," says RAW principal Roland Rom Colthoff, "really a gap between the Broadview loft building and BMW Toronto.... we wanted a building that was animated and eye-catching, and I think we got that."

At 20,000 square feet and costing $6 million, the new buildings represent a major re-investment in Toronto for the BMW-owned Mini brand, replacing their hip but quite small first location on King Street West.

The dealership opened on April 1, and the landscaping is set to be completed this month.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Roland Rom Colthoff

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A unique building at Pearson airport, which started out as a simple utilitarian project to train its own staff and ended up a dynamic for-profit institute run by the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, has won a 2010 Ontario Architects Association award for design excellence.

Designed by Kleinfeldt Mychajlowycz Architects Incorporated, which was previously cited by the OAA for their own offices at 147 Portland St., the Fire and Emergency Training Services Institute trains fire and emergency personnel in its classrooms, using such facilities as a burn building and a rescue tower.

If the project receives the LEED Silver certification it's aiming for with its passive solar collection panels and reduced energy and water consumption, it will be the airport's first LEED building.

"It exceeded forecasts in regard to recovered solar energy," says project manager Gerald Lambers.

Construction on the 25,000 square foot, $13.5-million building began in November, 2005 and was completed in January, 2007. The prize will be awarded next month.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gerald Lambers

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

Modrobes was Lululemon avant la lettre and sans yoga. An independent shop, run by Brock University graduate designer Steven Sal Debus, Modrobes was a Queen West staple from its opening in a 400 square foot shop just west of John in 1997, to its expansion into a spot almost five times that size in the space now occupied by Adrenaline Tattoos. The big shop closed in 2005, but thanks to a winning appearance on CBC's Dragon's Den, Modrobes is back, re-funded, in a 1,200 square foot shop in the old Rotate This space at 620 Queen West.

Following the theme of the new clothing line, which Debus calls eco-sportswear, he designed the shop himself. "It used as much recycled material as possible," he says. "Basically, it's made of old metal and old barn board."

This is the least expansive store he's ever put together, he says. The big one that shut in 2005 cost him $250,000 to design and implement; this one, which opened April 10, cost $20,000.

The clothing is made mostly from recycled plastic bottles � 18 make a jacket, 16 for a pair of shorts � and is priced between $14.99 for an "organic t-shirt" and $150 for the jacket.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Steven Sal Debus

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

A sign went up last week on the old Downtown Fine Cars dealership on Avenue just north of Davenport. Pears, named for the street residents will eventually be entering from, will be one of the first condo towers to be entirely conceived and launched � as opposed to re-launched � in the post-recession market.

At 20 storeys and 130 units, the mid-size, high-end building will begin selling this week. The building will be designed by Page Steele/IBI Group Architects, with interior design by Munge Leung Design Associates.

"We really have been working hard to come up with a building design that really adds to the streetscape and makes a design contribution to the area," says Mimi Ng, vice president of marketing for Menkes, which is developing the site.

The building will also incorporate a two-storey retail component along Avenue Road. "It's going to help liven up that stretch, which recently has been a bit derelict," Ng says.

If sales go well, construction will begin next year.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mimi Ng

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

The old Rawlinson Cartage building at 11 St. Joseph Street, built between 1895 and 1898 and turned residential between 2002 and 2004 when a 17-storey tower was added outback, is getting another update. Design firm II by IV (Two by Four) began work a month ago for owner Barney River to redesign the more than 200 rental units to be sold as condos.

"The units were pretty well planned, so there was no structural or architectural alterations needed," says II by IV partner Dan Menchions, who says the project is meant to be completed on March 27.

Forty-two of the units have already sold to previous tenants, according to Menchions, who is confident sales will progress briskly from here on out. "I think they have the advantage that the building exists," he says, in contrast to the numerous pre-build sales going on around town.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Dan Menchions

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Fans of the old Fish Market bar on Market Street, just south of Front, and of the Summerhill LCBO will be pleased to hear that the people behind the latter are getting behind the former. Woodcliffe Corporation is expanding the small Front Street LCBO into a 13,000 square foot space worthy of the growing St Lawrence Market neighbourhood.

Paul Oberman, Woodcliffe's president and CEO, says he'll be announcing it officially soon, but gave Yonge Street the heads up.
"The existing LCBO will be extended on the second floor level, and we're putting restaurants in on the ground floor, so the existing buildings will be renovated, the fish market will be restored, and the garage on the corner of The Esplanade will be demolished, and we're constructing a two-storey building there."

Woodcliffe will start work in April and complete the project in 2011.

"It'll be largely a restored space, with big, tall ceilings, lots of glazing, and we're fully enclosing all the shipping and receiving, the messy backroom stuff, shielding the street from it. It's going to be way cool, if I do say so myself," Oberman says.

Woodcliffe has also applied to the City to make Market Street a pedestrian-only zone, with a flower market on the east side of the street under the St. Lawrence Market overhang. The city's decision is pending.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul Oberman

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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

You could see it as a test of just how far Dupont has come. Though it's been developing over the past decade, making the transition from industrial hinterland to North Annex, with businesses like Nancy's Cheese, Ezra's Pound and Frangipane bakery apparently flourishing, the step-down restaurant spot at 328 Dupont, owned by Wynn Family Properties, has not been so lucky.

The owners of Diverso by Ferraro hope the time has come for a mid-range restaurant on a strip known until know for its relative highs (Bistro Tournesol, Indian Rice Factory) and its beloved lows (AAA and Vesta Lunch).

The second location for the company (the first has been on Eglinton just west of Avenue for 16 years), the owners made an extra effort with the renovations to distinguish themselves from a long line of failed restaurants, the latest of which was called Trattoria 328.

The cosmetic renovation was done by Hirschberg Design Group on a budget of about $50,000. "If this thing works well, then they're going to make a serious commitment to the neighbourhood," says Martin Hirschberg of the design that incorporates the prominent piping that's part of the building's infrastructure. "This space is really for them to find out how it's going to work in the new neighbourhood. So we wanted to do something that was kind of light and kind of fun, not too serious, kind of a bit campy, to make it inviting to the area."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Diverso by Ferraro, Hirschberg Design Group, Martin Hirschberg

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

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

Philippe Starck's contribution to the condoboom is nearing completion, as the 75-foot-long table in the lobby he's designed for 75 Portland was moved in late last month.

Known for his work with hotels like SLS in Beverly Hills and his industrial design work for Alessi and others, Starck's design was meant to distinguish this mid-rise Freed development from the pack of condos with which it's been competing.

"Every day, it's looking more surreal,"says Anthony Decarli, Freed's director of development.

The project as a whole was designed by CoreArchitects and is built on the site of the old Artword Theatre, which closed its doors in 2006. People are expected to start moving in this month.
 
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Freed Development

 

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

The competition to redesign the north building of St Lawrence Market, which has spent much of its existence in the long shadow cast by its more picturesque sister across the street, now has a shortlist.

On Feb. 3, Mayor David Miller and the St Lawrence neigbourhood's city councillor Pam McConnell announced the five-strong list. Adamson Associates Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners; Cohos Evamy + Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden Architects; Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects; NORR Limited, Architects Engineers Planners; Taylor Hazell Architects and Montgomery Sisam.

Phase two of the competition now begins, with the winning design to be announced in June. The building is slated for a 2014 completion, with the Saturday farmer's market and the Sunday antiques market which are currently the building's main attractions being housed in temporary digs at 125 The Esplanade.

"We are extremely fortunate to have a distinguished list of jury members to help us realize the City's vision," said Councillor McConnell. "This is an exciting, once in a lifetime opportunity for the jury and for our city to build a legacy. We are all eager for the short-listed teams to unveil their models and concepts in May."

The jury consists of Christine Couvelier, President of Culinary Concierge; Dr. Ron Dembo, Founder and CEO of Zerofootprint; William N. Greer, B.Arch., FRAIC, CAHP, Professional Heritage Consultant; Andrea P. Leers, FAIA, Principal at Leers Weinzapfel Associates; Peter Ortved, B.Arch., OAA, FRAIC, Principal of CS&P Architects; Claire Weisz, Founding Partner of WXY Architecture.

There has been a market building on the northwest corner of Front and Jarvis since at least 1820.
 
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: City of Toronto

Ryerson University announced last week that they'd signed on Toronto's Zeidler Partnership Architects and Sn�hetta of Oslo to design their new $45-million Student Learning Centre, which will fill the sad hole left by their recent demolition of the old World of Posters, Future Shop and, of course, Sam the Record Man at the corner of Yonge and Gould.

"I think it's going to be a compilation of everything," says Ryerson spokeswoman Heather Kearney, of the design-in-progress and the presentation the two firms gave of their previous work on libraries and campuses around the world that won them the commission. Zeidler is most famously responsible for Ontario Place (1967-71), the Eaton Centre (1974-81) and the Queens Quay Terminal refurbishment (1979-83), and Sn�hetta made their reputation with the Alexandria Library (1989-2001).

Kearney estimates there will be a year of design work on the 160,000 square foot, 10-storey building, which will include a library, so construction is not expected to begin until sometime in 2011, with a 2013 completion date set.

The $45 million is all provincial funding though with no design, there's no word yet on whether that's going to be the entire budget. "I assume they're going to work within that budget,' Kearney says, "but whether it's realistic or not I don't know."

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Ryerson University