Development News

New owners are starting to move in to the just completed commercial building known as Junction Triangle Lofts at 229 Wallace.

Initial businesses to take up residence in what could turn out to be a new anchor in this emerging neighbourhood, just east of the Junction, include a medical office, an animation operation and the requisite yoga studio.

Ubisoft, the videogame giant, opened up shop across the street from the building recently, and will ultimately be hiring as many as 800.

"I did see a definite need for artists' studios and so forth in the downtown area," says Ashley Ross, the developer. "The Queen West triangle, all the artists were kicked out of there four or five years ago, which is when I bought the property, and I said, 'There has to be somewhere to fill that void.'"

Taking the place of the former D&M Building Supplies, the 216 by 112 foot lot houses the 28,000 square foot building. Each of the 10 two storey units is 2,650 square feet, and features a 180 square foot deck on the back of the second floor. Prices started at $619,900.

Construction began March 15 of this year.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ashley Ross

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The 105-year-old Mining Building at the University of Toronto's St. George campus at College and McCaul is getting a $20-million renovation.

"Part of the project is to make this building accessible," says Nadeem Shabbar, the university's chief real estate officer. "The government gave us $11 million, and the faculty kicked in another $9 million to do some of their own improvements."

In addition to improving accessibility, the top floor of the stone building is to be entirely renovated.

The building was originally designed by Francis Heakes, who also did the provincial government's Whitney Block, and Frank Darling, who was also responsible for the university's Convocation Hall, Simcoe Hall and the Sandford Fleming building.

Work is due to be finished by March 31, 2011 in keeping with the strictures placed on the federal element of the funding.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nadeem Shabbar

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With the first tower complete, the second is slated for spring occupancy and now the townhouse portion of the West Harbour City development in City Place are almost done.

The first two of the 9 townhouses, which range from 1,748 to 2,253 square feet and cost between $645,990 and $798,990, are completely done, inside and out, and the last 7 are having their interiors finished and kitchens installed.

According to Nestor Repetski, speaking for the Winick Realty Corp., which is selling the Plazacorp properties, "If you go to Vancouver, there's a lot of high-rises where the high-rise component is fronting onto the main street and then there's a low-rise, like a town home component, fronting onto a side street or a backstreet, which is what we've done here. There's an L-shaped tower that fronts onto the main thoroughfares, and then the town homes complete the square."

The rest of the town houses will be finished by the end of the month.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nestor Repetski

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The Onni Group and architect Stephen Hood hope that their massive new development, Westlake Village, will become a new centre for the entire south Etobicoke neighbourhood.

It's based around a community square that would have limited surface parking - about 30 cars -- but "it's basically a pedestrian landscape realm," says Stephen Hood, of Page and Steele/IBI Group, of the 1,300 unit, three-tower project that will also include 70,000 square feet of retail space, including a major grocery store.

Units for the first phase have just gone on sale, and the site plan is before Etobicoke's community council.

"It's very crisp and clean," says Hood of the concrete structure with pre-cast concrete detailing. "It's after a modern look to it. At the same time, we will be introducing a fair bit of masonry in the podiums and along the townhouses and retail frontages to give it a better interface with the natural setting along Mimico Creek, and a more human element relating to the pedestrian realm."

The builders will also be introducing a new traffic light to the neighbourhood, between the Kraft office building, which is next to the Mr. Christie's factory, and the grocery store, which if approved will be built as part of the development's second phase.

If sales go well, Hood expects to be in the ground next year.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source; Stephen Hood

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Spadina House re-opened on Monday after a 10-month closure for its first comprehensive renovation since the house was converted from a private home to a museum in 1984.

The museum's $600,000 renovation, handled by general contractor COSAR, includes a refocusing of the museum on the 20th century.

"The first restoration in 1984 focused on three generations," says museum administrator Karen Edwards. "Each room was a different generation. That kind of jumping around was sometimes difficult to interpret."

The house's former owners, the Austin family, left the museum about 100 boxes of documents, including invoices, grocery bills and even unused rolls of wallpaper, and a lot of the time during the closure was spent poring over those boxes, and creating exhibits and props for the house to show as clearly as possible what life was like for this prosperous family throughout the 20th century.


Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Karen Edwards

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Construction is slated to start within the next 30 days on the new Munk School of Global Affairs on Bloor Street at Devonshire.

Architecture firm KPMB will be working with builder Govan Brown on the heritage building that started life as the University of Toronto's meteorological centre and served generations of students as the admissions office.

The cost of the whole project is about $13.6 million, according to U of T's chief real estate officer, Nadeem Shabbar.

"There will be some landscaping done as well," he says, and we'll make the building accessible, because currently, it's not. We're going to put an elevator in the back of the building."

Because it's a heritage building, its fa�ade will remain unchanged.

Shabbar says the target is to complete the project by the summer of 2011.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nadeem Shabbar

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Ground was broken last week just north of Finch on the west side of Yonge for the area's newest condo project, called The Palm.

It's the third project for developer Castle Royale, which built Belair Gardens at York Mills and Don Valley in 2006, and Tuscany Gates at 220 Forum Drive in Mississauga in 2008.

"Finch station is the second busiest subway station after Union," says Castle Royale CEO Nick Nanji, "and when its connected to York University, it will get even busier. That's why we felt this location was just perfect."

"The Kiss and Ride is right next to it," says Castle Royale president Mona Bhamani, "and Ontario has been putting a lot of pressure to increase density on Yonge Street and for developers to use the TTC."

The building team, including HC Architects, was brought in from Dubai, where Castle Royale is also active.

The 23-storey building, with 216 units for sale between $250,000 and $450,000 (with a $650,000 penthouse) is expected to be ready for residents by the summer of 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Sources: Mona Bhamani, Nick Nanji

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A second-generation family kitchen installation business has consolidated and expanded in a million-dollar move to Steeles and 400 in Vaughan.

QTK Fine Cabinetry also rebranded with the help of Blackjet Inc. � it was formerly known as Quality Tops and Kitchens � as it made the move from two buildings, 11,000 square feet and 20,000 square feet, into the single 45,000 square foot location in June.

"We've always been looking for a new building for operational efficiencies," says general manager Daniel Toto, son of Tony and Mary Toto, who founded the company in 1974, "and with the recession, the American company that owned the building was shutting up shop in Canada."

The Totos bought the building in August, 2009 and spent the first five months setting up the factory portion of the operation and the next seven months designing and building the offices, under the direction of architect Michael Amantea.

The only thing left is the showroom, with space for 11 kitchens, of which two, both fully functional, have already been installed.

Toto figures the whole thing will be finished by next summer.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Daniel Toto

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"It's not just a fad," says Shane Fenton, talking about the current popularity of the strip of Ossington between Queen and Dundas.

He's vice president of Reserve Properties, the company that's just announced its new loft-townhouse-retail development going in at 41 Ossington. It's the sort of project that may end up ensuring Fenton's right.

"The interesting thing about Ossington is that it's a truly mixed-use neighbourhood," Fenton says, "residential and commercial. From a public standpoint, it's known for restaurants and galleries, but by developing a mixed use property like this, we're demonstrating that it's not just a great place to go for lunch or dinner, but it's also a great place to live."

The 12 lofts, 9 townhomes and 2,500 square feet of retail will be replacing a disused commercial spot, the old  Hesco Electric. Prices will start at $315,900 for the lofts, and $829,900 for the townhouses.

The architect is Raw Design, and the interiors are being done by II by IV Design Associates.

The first sign for the project went up on Oct. 16, and the grand opening of the sales office will be November 13. Fenton expects they'll start to dig by the spring, and will have the project completed by the summer of 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Shane Fenton

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The Scarborough campus of the University of Toronto will be getting a new academic block as a result of $70 million in federal stimulus funding.

Built on a former parking lot at the east end campus, the new building will include large rooms for the bigger lectures and exam writing. The Scarborough campus pitched in an extra $8 million of its own money to add academic and administrative offices to the teaching spaces.

According to the university's chief real estate officer Nadeem Shabbar, the parking has already been replaced at an aboveground site nearby.

Since no money was raised for the project, the 165,000 square foot building will simply be called the Scarborough Instructional Centre. It's slated for completion by March 31, 2011, the deadline set by the federal stimulus package.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nadeem Shabbar

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The second Menchie's frozen yogurt bar in Canada is set to open in the old Dooney's space at 511 Bloor Street West.

Though T Caf�, the business that occupied the space right after Dooney's, made some alterations, Michael Shneer, the Concord-based master franchiser for Menchie's in Canada, it's going to be unrecognizable by the time he's done with it.

"We basically had to tear out everything that was in there," says Shneer, who was also Ontario franchise-holder for LA Weight Loss. "The kitchen, the equipment, the floors, the walls, the entire basement, the bathrooms, everything." The exposed brick is being dry-walled to enable him to paint the place with the Menchie's colours.

He's even re-doing the exterior and retiling the walk-up to the front door, finally getting rid of the old Caplan's terrazzo that had been there since before the Dooney's days. The only thing Shneer's not changing for this location, a company-owned store he plans to use as a flagship to train new franchisees, is the patio.

He figures renovating the 1,300 square foot place, with its 1,300 square foot basement, cost him in the range of $200,000.

The first Menchie's opened in September in Richmond Hill, and the agreement Shneer signed with the Encino, California headquarters calls for 100 across the country in the next five years.

The Bloor Street shop is scheduled to open Oct. 30.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Michael Shneer

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Infrastructure Ontario and Waterfront Toronto has announced that a consortium led by HOK architects has been awarded the planning, design and compliance contract for the athletes village to be built in the West Don Lands to host the Pan American Games in 2015.

Mark Guslits, HOK's senior project director, describes the job as providing "detailed documents that describe all the elements of the village, both the overlay, which relates to the PanAmerican Games portion of it, as well as the legacy, which is what will remain once the games are over."

The plan is to create accommodations and facilities for the 8,000 athletes expected for the July, 2015 games, and to build it all to a LEED Gold environmental standard. Though there will be some temporary buildings, including welcome centres and meal halls, most of what's built will be converted into a commercial and residential community once the games are over, including both affordable and market-value homes.

The consortium includes Quadrangle, which will concern itself primarily with the larger buildings on the site, Dutoit Allsopp Hillier, which will focus on the community-related aspects of the project, and Montgomery Sisam, whose experience with Infrastructure Ontario projects will, according to Guslits, allow them to be "a guiding influence related to generating the documents in the fashion in which IO expects them."

HOK will take on the sustainability aspects of the village.

Guslits expected the request for qualifications (RFQ) to go out to the developer and builder community in the next couple of weeks, and figures the project as a whole will be done by the end of 2014.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mark Guslits


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The latest in a string of 30 murals, each dedicated to an article of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights on its 60th anniversary, has gone up on a building opposite the Arts Etobicoke offices at 4893A Dundas West.

Known as Urban Canvas, the Amnesty International Toronto-sponsored project has so far resulted in 12 murals around the city, mostly outside the downtown core.

"Good walls for murals are hard to find," says AITO's Elena Dumitru in an email, "and we've had lots of challenges with trying to find walls in downtown Toronto (none so far, generally the available ones are used for advertising purposes as far as we know)."

The mural, dedicated to Article 13, is being touted as "Toronto's longest outdoor poem," and was commissioned by Arts Etobicoke from Toronto Poet Laureate Dionne Brand. The owner of the building on which it's painted is Pierre Seunik, head of the PS Group of Companies and president of the Islington Village Business Improvement Area.

"We showed him the poem," says Arts Etobicoke's fundraising and communications manager Ruth Cumberbatch. "We contracted an artist to create a design and ran sketches by him. The only thing he had concerns about where things like if they have to do snow removal in the alley, we wanted to make sure they wouldn't wreck the mural, so he asked us to keep it up a certain height."

The designer is Susan Rowe Harrison and the artist is William Lazos.

The 1,000 square foot mural was unveiled yesterday.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ruth Cumberbatch, Elena Dumitru

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The Don Valley Parkway was closed from Lakeshore to Eglinton this past weekend for a $900,000 resurfacing.

The 2km stretch from Beechwod Drive to Taylor Massey Creek was ground and repaved, with cracks sealed, signs adjusted and camera casings fixed over the entire Lakeshore-Eglinton stretch.

"We've had a lot of cracks and potholes and stuff like that," says Susan Samuel, manager of surface maintenance for Toronto and East York. "We got some money from the federal government, so we thought it was a good time to do the maintenance."

The work was carried out by Furfari Paving.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Susan Samuel

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When the model of the final plans for the new Women's College Hospital were unveiled at the end of September, the press release was headed "One thousand women. One thousand voices. One hospital reinvented to meet their needs."

And according to hospital president and CEO Marilyn Emery, those 1,000 women interviewed online, by phone and in focus groups, had a profound effect on what the new hospital is going to look like, and how it's going to operate.

As a result of their two years of research, the hospital decided that privacy, safety, flexible family eating areas with diverse food options, open spaces with curved walls and staircases, and accessibility are all big priorities.

"Safety and privacy for some women means there's an opportunity to use a washroom that's a single-unit washroom instead of communal," Emery says, "especially for trans women, and it's considered a safety issue for many trans women."

But it was the discussions of accessibility, which Emery figured after 30 years in the healthcare industry she knew all about, that surprised her most.

"One thing that I learned from listening to women with disabilities was from a woman who herself was very, very large -- she required a mobility device," Emery says. "She said that through her entire adult life, she has never been able to undergo a physical examination in a room with the door shut because either the room wasn't large enough, or you couldn't shut the door with all of what was needed in the room. On the one hand, I couldn't believe my ears, but on the other hand, all I had to do was look at this woman to say, absolutely. We don't routinely build space that accommodates that kind of disability. It's a lot more than wheelchair access via a ramp in and out of a building."

The research encompassed a massive variety of communities and perspectives, including seniors, lesbian and queer women, lesbian and queer youth, transgendered women, women with addictions, abused women, women with disabilities, women living with HIV/AIDS, street workers, women with mental health issues, low-income women, recent immigrants, Tamil women, Bengali women, Caribbean women and Mandarin-speaking women.

The $460-million project is expected to open in 2016.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Marilyn Emery

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].