Development News

As part of the study of how to improve the stretch of Dundas Street between University Avenue and Bathurst Street, the city held a public meeting last night at Ryerson to discuss options and priorities.

According to Councillor Adam Vaughan, the study is intended to "provide a concept design on how the public realm on Dundas Street between University Avenue and Bathurst Street can be improved.

A preliminary design for the strip, which includes the AGO, Chinatown, and Alexandra Park housing community as well as Kensington Market, was presented at the meeting. According to Vaughan, "it seeks to tie together the diverse communities and neighbourhoods through design elements that will also highlight the various distinct areas."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

There will be a public meeting tomorrow to discuss the future of John Street, which the city, the local BIA and The Planning Partnership have all decided should be a cultural centre of some sort.

"It's not a new idea," says Harold Madi, partner at TPP, which is spearheading the planning and design aspects of the process. "It's been germinating for 20 years so."

The first official mention of what now looks almost certain to be the 3/4km street's future came in the 2001 Waterfront plan, followed up two years later with a similar reference in the city's cultural plan. Both thought John Street should be a sort of cultural corridor, linking, as it does, the AGO, the CBC, the convention centre and the CN Tower.

Though it's been percolating for years, there is now, according to Madi, a sense of urgency about the project, spurred, he says, by two things. "One, there are a lot of developments proposals along John Street, some already under construction, like Bell Lightbox, and when those developments take place, they re-streetscape the block, and this was an opportunity to create a vision for John Street that would inform those developments, so they could streetscape with a common vision."

The other was the Pan Am Games. "The opening and closing ceremonies are right smack dab in the middle of John Street at the Rogers Centre," he says.

To hurry the process along, TPP has put together a presentation, including background research for the various things that could happen to John Street, which they'll be presenting at the public meeting which will be at Metro Hall tomorrow in room 309 at 6pm. They'll also be unveiling their own suggestion of what they figure, all things considered, would be best for the street.

Though no work is expected to start any time soon, Madi says he hopes the entire project will be finished in time for the Pan Am Games in five years.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Harold Madi

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The Rockport Group has taken over an assembled property near Sheppard and Bayview and will be building a 7-storey, 128-unit mid-range condo called 21 Clairtrell.

The original assemblers, who bought five adjoining single family dwellings, ran into financial difficulty during the recession. Rockport bought the property from the mortgage company earlier this year.

"They had applied for a 14-storey building," says Rockport's president and CEO Jack Winberg, speaking of the former aspirant developers, "the city went mad. Then they made it an 8-storey building" before they went under. Rockport kept the architects, Kirkor, but the project is going to be substantially different, with a largely brick facade and interiors done by Mike Niven.

"This is one of those great examples of re-use and intensification," Winberg says. "Now there's a subway at Bayview and Sheppard, the world's land has become more expensive, living styles are changing, and you're taking five units and you're going to put 128 on the same piece of land."

Though he says land is scarce up there, Winberg is happy to be providing an alternative to the high-rise projects by the likes of Daniels and Shane Baghai. "Across the street, you've got townhomes," he says of 21 Clairtrell, "not a 30-storey building, and across the other way is a school. It's a quiet residential street."

Rockport, under Winberg's father, Burton, built Toronto's first five condominium projects, beginning with a still-extant townhouse project on Albion Road, known as York Condominium No. 1, in 1968, one year after the legislation allowing for condominium development was signed.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source; Jack Winberg

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The big black tower, said to be architect Peter Clewes' homage to Mies van der Rohe, is almost finished at Jarvis and Charles.

Built by Great Gulf Homes, X is the first phase of a two-phase development, the second of which will rise on the site of the old headquarters for Pizza Pizza. Phase I, which begins occupying this summer and will be fully completed by the end of the year, is 44 storeys with 410 units. Construction started three years ago, after demolition of the vacant former police headquarters building was completed.

"It's the boundary line, if you will, between this rolling, bucolic road where it hits the city grid," says Great Gulf's director of marketing and acquisitions, Geoff Matthews, speaking of Mount Pleasant, at whose base X sits, across the street from the Rogers building, "and it lines up against Charles and Isabella, which are all becoming higher density streets."

With a total square footage of about 400,000, the building sold out, with prices in the mid-$400 psf range.

When completed, there will also be a sculpture by Shayne Dark  out front.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Geoff Matthews

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GWL Realty Advisors, which manages Commerce Court, took the opportunity provided by a meeting convened by primary tenant, law firm Stikeman Elliott, to introduce its new submetering program, which will allow each tenant to monitor their own energy use.

The meeting, held late last month under the auspices of the Toronto City Summit's Greening Greater Toronto's "Greening Our Workplaces" Tenant Series, was meant to provide a forum for tenants and their landlord to discuss various green initiatives and proposals.

"We're actually in the installation process now," says Paul Hollins, director of technical services with GWLRA, who's in charge of the 1,985,480 square foot complex, "and we've hopefully whetted their appetites, and by November, when we've completed the system, they can set some targets for themselves."

"Tenants will be able to use the metering system to validate whether automation features in the building, such as lighting controls, plug loads like computers, are working to their advantage," Hollins says. "It will be able to tell us if all the computers are on all night, or if the lights are on over the weekend."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul Hollins

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Underground construction has begun at the site of the latest condo towers to go up in in the increasingly intense King and Spadina area.

Charlie, designed by Diamond + Schmitt, built by Great Gulf with interiors by Cecconi Simone and landscaping by Janet Rosenberg and Associates, will be a 36-storey, 300-unit tower on an 8-storey podium.

All glass, the building will also include 6,000 square feet of retail along King Street, livening up a strip that used to be dominated by the parking lot this condo, replaces. The entrance to the residential portion of the building will be off Charlotte Street.

"It's a highly sought-after residential area that's changed immeasurably since Barbara Hall took the industrial use restrictions off in the mid-1990s." says Great Gulf's director of market and acquisitions Geoff Matthews.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source; Geoff Matthews

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Ground was finally broken at the end of April, and excavation is now almost complete on what will be the country's tallest condominium tower.

Aura at College Park will be 75 storeys when built, rising 243 metres with 931 units and a total of 1.1 million square feet of residential space.. It's three-storey podium will house 150,000 square feet of retail and professional offices, including BMO, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Canyon Creek and Alice Fazooli's.

Aura was designed by Barry Graziani of Graziani + Corazza Architects, and is being built by Canderel Stoneridge.

"We believe that the tower's location along Yonge Street, at one of the most historic sites in the city, required an exhilarating architectural form," Canderel president Michael La Brier, said in a press release.

In addition to being connected to the College Park shopping centre, Aura will give its residents indoor passage to the subway system and promises eventual inclusion in an expanded PATH system.

The entire 75th floor, at 11,370 square feet, is still available as a single penthouse, currently priced at $17.5 million.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Michael La Brier

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Work on the new $29-million, 4.5-acre park at the foot of Lower Sherbourne has moved above ground with both the pavilion and the water channel getting underway.

"One of the most interesting features of this park is that some of the precinct-wide infrastructure is being amalgamated with the mark design," says James Roche, a senior project manager with Waterfront Toronto, who is developing the site, "so you're going to have treated water being discharged into the lake as a main feature of the park."

Work is further along on the portion of the park south of Queens Quay, which is expected to be completed this summer. The north side, which will be less of a city-wide attraction and is being built as more of a neighbourhood resource, is expected to be completed by October or November.

Other features of the park will include a splash pad, winter skating rink and lawn for recreation and performances.

Though it's temporarily known as Sherbourne Park, the shortlist of eight possible permanent names was released last week, with voting on the final three going into next week.

The shortlisted names were Bayfront Village Green, Blue Edge Park, Kanadario Park, Merchant's Wharf Park, Ridout Park, Sherbourne Commons (obviously the best choice), Tkaronto Park and Waterside Park.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: James Roche

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The City of Pickering released a report last week that will determine the direction of much of its future development.

Generically titled Measuring Sustainability Report, it sets out 32 criteria by which the sustainability of development in the city may be measured.

"It's getting the ground rules established," says Tom Melymuk, director of Pickering's office of sustainability. "If you take a green building program, how can we incent that? Once you start measuring how well you're doing, you can start focusing on areas where you're not doing as well and develop an action plan."

There is no schedule, or any action plans in place yet, and Melymuk refers to the report as a framework for the future.

As it was described in the city's press release, "The indicators range from those that reflect the quality of Pickering's air and water, to those that reflect the City's progress towards being an inclusive and welcoming community, with healthy employment opportunities."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Tom Melymuk

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The Aga Khan and Prime Minister Harper were in town last week to break ground on the $300-million Aga Khan Museum and Ismaili Centre in the city's north end.

"His original hope was to locate this project in London, England," says an effervescently enthusiastic Councillor John Parker, in whose ward the buildings and adjacent park are being built, "but things didn't work out there. Plan B was Wynford Drive, Ward 26." Parker calls the development his ward's largest "by a long shot."

The site, on which construction began last week, was formerly home to a Shell Oil office building and, more notably, the former headquarters of Bata Shoes, a building by John B. Parkin that the Toronto Star's Chris Hume wrote was "reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple. Unadorned yet poetic, the architecture pays homage to the past while extolling the virtues of the future," and the Globe's Lisa Rochon described as "imperfect," "clumsy" and derivative.

According to Parker, the original plan was to build in two phases, but various delays in approvals convinced the developer, a local corporation put together by the Aga Khan, to build it all at once and much more quickly, starting several years later than planned, but finishing up by the original completion date, in 2013.

"Your average developer would move ahead on as many fronts as they could establish, and once they had a critical mass of construction approvals, would get to work building," Parker says. "This developer didn't want to make their first move until they had all their plans fully approved."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Councillor John Parker

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Dogs can take to the rainy streets with more confidence starting this month thanks to Toronto Hydro's handwell replacement program, currently being rolled out across the six neighbourhoods in greatest need.

Handwells are the infrastructural hubs beneath those little metal discs in sidewalks that have made the news in recent years after electrocuting a couple of dogs due to worn or damaged wiring.

"I think anything that will help reduce the incidents of contact voltage is good for the city, says Toronto Hydro spokeswoman Denise Atallah.

The program, which is replacing 1,200 of the metal discs with ones made of non-conducting polymer concrete, began in May along the Danforth and Riverdale and will continue through 2011 in the Port Lands, Corktown, High Park, the Junction, Roncesvalles, South Kingsway, Lawrence Village and the Annex.

According to Atallah, it takes about half a day to replace each handwell, which houses the wiring needed for street lights, traffic lights and other municipal electricals. The handwells were originally installed during the 1950s and 60s when much of the city's wiring was transferred underground.

The program will continue after the initial neighbourhoods are complete, ultimately replacing a total of 2,300 handwells.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Denise Atallah

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An extraordinary rental development, built in Rosedale 1927, is in the process of being renovated and condofied and will go on sale this Friday.

Ancroft Place, a collection of 21 town houses on one side of a street facing south towards a ravine, have been rental properties ever since their construction, though the property's second owner, Thomas Kellner, had received approval for a condo conversion back in 1987, an approval he never acted on, though it remained in force when, after his death and that of his wife, the property was bought by Canlight Realty.

"The fact that it was registered as a condominium meant we could renovate the units," says Canlight president Vernon Shaw. "It enabled us to spend the kind of money and do the kind of things that no landlord would ever dream of doing."

After taking possession in April, Canlight began renovations on the exteriors. "It looks like an incredible war zone today with all the trades," Shaw says.

The homes which range in size from 1,890 square feet to 2,700 and in price from $1,175,000 to $1,395,000 will undergo extensive interior renovations as they're purchased. The tenants, all still in residence, have been given the opportunity to buy their units and Shaw suspects maybe three or four of them will.

The history of the development, along with the fact of 21 heritage Rosedale homes are coming on the market for the first time, may result in quite quick sales.

"In my fantasy, that what happens," the British-accented Shaw says. "But a lot of my fantasies don't come true I've noticed."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Vernon Shaw

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The city's swing towards intensification, embodied in such recent projects as Lippincott Living, 12 Degrees and several Streetcar developments, continues this summer as 83 Redpath opens its doors.

Designed by Sweeny Stirling Finlayson & Co. Architects Inc. for the Benvenuto Group (which also owns the recently condofied Benvenuto), the project replaced a 19-storey 70s slab with an 80-car surface parking lot attached into a 22-storey tower with townhouses, a condo-rental combo that more than doubles the site's coverage density, from 2.0 to 4.56, and increases the number of units on the 1.6 acres south of Eglinton and west of Mt. Pleasant from 185 to 397.

The original building also had 57 bachelor suites and 36 two-bedroom units, while the current configuration eliminates bachelors and increases the number of larger, more family-friendly suites to 60 (each of which has a den in addition to the two bedrooms).

"We actually made the street a lot more urban, a lot more interesting, a lot more pleasant," says architect Dermot Sweeny. In addition to having space for 38 visitor bicycles on the ground level as well as scores of underground spots for residents' bikes, Sweeny also points out that none of the townhouses have driveways.

"We're seeing a tremendous decline in demand for parking," Sweeny says." As the cost of living in an urban situation go up, there is a new generation that is dropping the cars, which is fabulous, and we've got to support them."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Dermot Sweeny

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CORRECTION: This story originally stated the development would run from 185-212 Mt. Pleasant.

There's a three-building, 300-unit complex rising between the bus station and Women's College Hospital that will go a long way to transforming the neighbourhood from a dense mass of uninviting concrete into something resembling a functional part of town.

Designed by Regional Architects and Hilditch Architects, the new YWCA women's housing complex, called the Elm Centre, will feature roof-top gardens and extensive landscaping on street level.

"We've tried to reach out to the community with the massing and the views into the site," says Steve Hilditch, one of the project's architectural principals.

The 235,000 square foot complex, which will have certain units set aside for aboriginal women and 15 per cent for women over 50, is being built on the site of Toronto's first poor house, the 1848 facade of which is being retained, and is budgeted at $80-million. It's being built to Toronto Green standards, intentionally avoiding the expense of applying for LEED certification, which can be extensive, given the non-profit status of the project.

Demolition began late in 2007, construction began in early 2009, and is just now reaching the fifth storeys of all three buildings. They're expected to be completed 12 months from now.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Steve Hilditch

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The old Pier 1 shop at the corner of Yonge and Shuter got an odd new look two weeks ago, wrapped in signs advertising local businesses and entrepreneurs and directing passers-by to a Twitter identity, #whatisvalue, and a website of the same name. Unless you're especially colour sensitive you might not notice, without paying closer attention, that the orange belongs to the worldwide branding campaign of branch-less bank, ING Direct.

"In keeping with our brand and what we stand for, we like to do things differently," says Peter Aceto, president and CEO of ING Direct Canada. "We're part of a community, and we wanted our first interaction with our community to be just that."

ING, which has rented the entire three-storey building on a long-term lease, intends to open a Save Your Money Cafe there towards the end of this year. But unlike similar cafes in Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver, the Yonge and Shuter location will, in addition to coffee and tea served with a side of financial services tutorials, boast a second floor offering free office space for local entrepreneurs. The third floor will house a mini call centre, bringing several new jobs to the area.

The building will also feature free WiFi.

Designs for the approximately 10,000 square foot space are still being worked out, but ING decided to use the prominent frontage to further its aims while those details were being worked out, turning an otherwise vacant storefront into a potentially hub for corporate-client communications.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Aceto

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].