Development News

Once the site of Canada's most expensive house, on the market in 2006 for $45 million, the 11 acres known as Edgemere on Oakville's Gold Coast will soon be home to 30 families.

The nation's formerly most expensive home will be demolished.

Once they got the municipal go-ahead in November, Niche Development began work on a plan with Peter Clewes of architectsAlliance and builder Joe Brennan to build 10 buildings, each with three condominiums, that are on the market now for between $2,595,000 and a little more than $6 million.

Unlike other similar large-property developments, Hewitt and Clewes decided not to subdivide the property, first put together into an estate by James Ryrie, a Toronto jeweller whose business merged with Birks in the first decade of the last century.

"We were trying to preserve the memory of the estate," says Clewes. "There's a green house, a  gardener's house, a dry shed, for instance, and also the landscape, there's a spectacular landscape, a 100-year-old landscape with hundreds of trees."

But it's the buildings themselves, novel hybrids of condos, townhouses and single-family homes, that are the main attraction.

"The architecture is not like anything we've ever done," says Clewes, whose other projects include York University's Pond Road residences, the first green student housing in the country. "It's a contemporary re-interpretation of the arts and crafts, shingle-style that's in evidence in a lot of turn-of-the-century buildings in Oakville, with steeply pitched roofs, overhangs, stone. But it also has a contemporary feeling with an extraordinary number of windows."

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Peter Clewes

Queen and Ossington continues to grow, despite City Hall's one-year moratorium on licensing new bars and restaurants in the thriving neighbourhood.

Jamie Angell's Angell Gallery has moved from its original location at 890 Queen Street West to 12 Ossington, adding 3,300 square feet of space in the process.

Renovations are nearly complete. The gallery opens with a soft launch today at noon, and will have a rotating exhibit of gallery artists in its three spaces until the grand opening in April.

"Its an exciting strip in the city with a lot of new galleries opening," Angelll says. "There another one opening up the street. It's a good sign of the times when galleries are moving into larger spaces."

Angell expects the total cost of the renovation to be about $40,000, which includes high-quality wood stairs, a kitchen, a bar and all new dry-walling for the split-level space, formerly the Lennox Contemporary gallery. The new space will allow the gallery to exhibit larger works by artists such as Jakub Dolejs, as well as more retrospective shows.

Angell represents artists, Canadian and international, in the $1,000-$5,000 range.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Jamie Angell

The block of Bloor west of Yonge is one of the highest-end, highest-traffic retails blocks in the nation. But other than The Spotted Dick, the first block east of Yonge has traditionally home only to crickets and tumbleweeds.

But Matthew Corrin is hoping to change that. The entrepreneur behind Freshii (formerly Lettuce) has just signed an agreement with Geoff Polci of Crema Coffee Co., less than two years old and already a Junction staple. For all the freshness of its food and design template, Freshii is not a destination restaurant. It's a place to go for lunch from the office. But Crema, winner of Toronto's 2008 Krupp's best cafe award, has the potential to draw clientele from across the great Yonge divide for its high-end, expertly brewed cups. There's little non-chain competition in the area, which increases the likelihood that a Freshii-Crema team-up might perk up the orphan block.

"It's tough to get into the core," says Polci, who'll have a staff of two to start, and had been considering locations around Summerhill, Richmond and Spadina. "This is a real opportunity. I'll be able to rent a small footprint for a decent amount of money. The co-branding and shared space, I think, is really the future of franchises and these kinds of businesses."

In addition to moving his $12,000 Clover machine to the new location (one of only three Clovers installed in the city before Starbucks bought the company and blocked future sales), Polci's bought a Mirage Idrocompresso, a lever-style espresso machine. Made in Naples and designed by Dutch metalworker Kees Van der Westen (whose machines Mark Prince at coffeegeek.com has declared the best in the world), Polci's a fan of its well engineered extraction process, and says it'll be the only one of its kind in the city.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Geoff Polci

People cycling around the eastern edges of the Annex will have noticed a new house on the corner of Admiral and Bernard that doesn't look at all like its neighbours.

Thanks to architect Nelson Kwong of nkA, the two dentists who lived in the mock-Tudor home that used to sit on the narrow 6.5 x 30 metre lot are now settling in to the city's newest attempt to update its housing style.

Winner of the Canadian Architects Award of Excellence in its planning stages, the house is three planar brick storeys high with a green-roof terrace and a single staircase running up its east side.

"The project itself was not without its challenges in terms of the approvals process," says Kwong, referring to concerns raised by the Annex Residents Association. "There was some opposition to what was proposed. It doesn't pick up on trying to be quasi-Victorian. But I think the owners were quite committed to the process."

The house is in the spiritual centre of the Annex, just down from Margaret Atwood's longtime home, and a few up from the house former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson shares with husband John Ralston Saul.

The lot, on the corner next door to the former German consulate, meant there would be little space for a yard.

"As much as that backyard is their own space, it's still quite a public space, even when you screen it off. Which gave us the idea for the flat-roof terrace with a green-roof application. It's almost given them back a full lot of outdoor amenity space."

Kwong says it's also an example of passive design, meaning the windows and roof minimize the amount of cooling and heating needed.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Nelson Kwong

Church Street's attractions have never been primarily culinary, but at least, for most of its recent history, you could get a decent burger. Once the home of formerly iconic Toronto chain Toby's Good Eats, Zelda's filled the gap nicely with their trailer-trash meets drag-queen take on some very sloppy burgers.

But when rent, rumoured to have been in the $35,000 a month range, finally did them in last year (they moved to a smaller space at 692 Yonge, replacing Arrabiata in the old Living Well space), the boys in the band and the young in one another's arms were burger bereft.

Hero Certified Burgers, Toronto-based cafe chain Lettieri's fast-food brand, is opening up its 21st GTA location in the old Lettieri space (formerly The Body Shop) on the southeast corner of Church and Wellesley.

According to Jeanine McLaughlin, VP of franchising, the father and two sons who bought the franchise, though not gay, are familiar with the gaybourhood (one son lives nearby).

"It'll be predominantly takeout," says McLaughlin of the 1,300 square foot space, which she estimated will have cost about $225,000 to renovate, mostly due to special ventilation requirements to suit the apartment building above, by the time it opens in mid-February.

It will also employ about double the number of people the Lettieri did, or about four during rushes, and two during the slow periods.

"The rent," McLaughlin says, "is reasonable enough to make this a very successful venture."

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Jeanine McLaughlin

The corner of Yonge and Front used to be known for two things: the Hockey Hall of Fame, and Shopsy's. A small tremor went through the city when Harry and Jenny Shopsowitz's place closed up shop on the last day of 2008. The space has been vacant ever since, but the Oliver & Bonacini Caf� Grill that's taking its place is set to open in the spring after a $4.5-million renovation that company principal Peter Oliver is referring to as more of a rebuild.

With 230 seats, a bar, a lounge and a wraparound patio facing both Front and Yonge streets (which accounts for $1-million of the renovation cost), the Caf� Grill is set to open May 1. It will employ 80 people and occupy the same footprint as Shopsy's, a surprising 9,462 square feet.

The fifth of what director of marketing and communications Teresa Suraci calls O&B's mid-range brand (the others are in Bayview Village, Oakville, Blue Mountain and Waterloo), the menu is meant to cater to the broadest possible audience.

It is being designed by Lindsay Anacleto of New Toronto's Anacleto Design, a former associate at Yabu Pushelberg, who designed Canoe for O&B. "It's going to be the flagship of this group of restaurants," says Suraci, adding that design is going to be purposefully urban.

And that concrete staircase on the Yonge fa�ade that never seemed to go anywhere? It's finally been taken down.

The Friends of Fort York have now begun their fundraising to contribute to the approximately $15-million expense of their new visitors centre, scheduled for completion in 2012, in time for the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

The team of Patkau Architects of Vancouver and Kearns Mancini Architects of Toronto have been named the winners of the design competition for the 22,000 square foot Fort York visitor centre, with a construction value of $12.2 million, with another $3 million in soft costs.

The visitors centre is part of a more general revitalization of the 43-acre site, which was central to the defence of the realm in the War of 1812. The site is also often referred to as the birthplace of Toronto, since John Graves Simcoe built his first garrison tent on the site in 1793.

Construction is expected to begin at the end of this year.

The federal government announced in December than it had committed $4 million to the project, and the City of Toronto another $5.3 million.

One of the design team's first decisions was not to encroach at all on what's known as the common or the "Field of Fire," the site of actual 1812 fighting, and not to build under the Gardiner Expressway. This left them with a very narrow space to develop.

As Toronto principal Jonathan Kearns explains, "In effect, our building became like the edge of a mini escarpment, which exists in several paintings from the early 1800s and quite a few people have commented on the fact that we in some way reinvented in a contemporary manner the original look of the edge of Lake Ontario."

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Kearns Mancini Architects

Designed by Quadrangle Architects, the curved building, with construction costs of about $75 million, according to its developer, was tucked into a small, odd-shaped lot.

"When we first bought the site, we liked it because it was kitty corner to the Douglas Coupland three-hectare park we built," says Concord Adex VP Alan Vihant. "You can cut through the park to get downtown but also immediately to the south, Lower Portland Street is where the Portland quay comes in, so the site's really close to the water's edge as well.

The idiosyncratic site imposed a greater than average number of design constraints on Quadrangle, however, including an extreme proximity to the Gardiner Expressway; the building's distinctive shape was their response.

"The space under the Gardiner became a large outdoor vestibule for the building," says principal architect Brian Curtner. "The curved podium facade follows the Lake Shore Boulevard to the south and the curved form of the tower suggests a billowing sail as it extends above the Expressway. The oval floor plans takes full advantage of the stunning lake and city views while rising above the adjacent Gardiner Expressway."

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche fans may recall Ottawa artist Adrian Gollner's piece staged in the tower this year, during which strobe lights were placed in 600 of the building's windows.

Writer: Bert Archer

Sources: urbandb.com, Concord Adex, Quadrangle Architects

Hotel on Queen, which some had feared would go the way of Inn on College (which was never built), is apparently on track and nearing completion.

"I expect it's going to be ready in three months," says Mike Niven, the boutique hotel's principal interior designer, whose firm, Mike Niven Interior Design Inc., also worked on the Luna condominiums at CityPlace. The project architect Radek Bronny of Forum Architect Co., confirms that his work is done and that there have been no recent changes to the design. "Right now, the contractor is finishing the job. The shell is done, but the finishes are a substantial part of it, so it will take some time," he said.

Located at 335 Queen Street West (on the site of late, lamented Chicago's), across from the corner of Beverly and smack dab in the middle of the heart of old Queen Street West, before its cultural centre moved Drake-wards, once open, Hotel on Queen will be one of the only boutique hotels of its kind in the city: small, upscale, and right in the middle of everything. Predecessors like Hotel Le Germain chose more discreet, if no less central, locations on side streets. The Drake, and chief competitor The Gladstone, established themselves well out of the core, successfully betting that the action would follow.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Forum Architect Co., Mike Niven Interior Design Inc.

As CityPlace nears completion, a clearer picture is emerging as to what sort of a neighbourhood it's going to be. Luna and Luna Vista, the two-tower condominium that are on schedule to beat Panorama to occupancy by a month or two, with its March date still the goal, are a couple of the finishing touches.

"West of Spadina, we intentionally took four blocks of development and set back the four corners," says Concord Adex VP Alan Vihant, "to make outdoor space for retailers that are restaurants or caf�s or food-based with outdoor seating areas."

With the other three setbacks already populated, the southeast corner of Luna with its outdoor seating area will complete the set. Though there's only 3,600 square feet of retail space in the 8-storey podium, which Vihant assumes will be occupied at least in part by a chain caf�, Luna is across the street from the 30,000 square feet of retail space tucked in beneath the Montage and Neo towers, where there's already a Sobey's Urban Fresh, a CIBC and a Royal Bank, with negotiations underway for one or two restaurants.

Luna, the shorter tower, is 18 storeys, and Luna Vista is 38, at 10 Capreol and 8 Telegram Mews respectively, with 712 units between them, were designed by KPMB and Core Architects.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Concord Adex

Smoke's Poutinerie has just signed a deal with BMO Field to sell its Toronto brand of poutine in the stadium's CNE grounds parking lot during the upcoming Toronto FC season's 40 games.

Toronto is, there's no point in denying it, a trendy city. Whether it be condos, indie cafes or burger joints, things pop up on our streets in waves. Poutine is one of the latest, and though Poutini's initially got some of the best reviews (at least partially because it's close to the Drake, in a neighbourhood where many of the folks who review such thing tend to live, or wish they did), it's Smoke's that's really taking the curds by the horns and going large.

After opening their first location over cult burrito joint Burrito Boyz on Adelaide West, and another on Dundas, Smiths Falls native and former graphic designer Ryan Smolkin is to open a third shop in late March on Queen Street just west of Bathurst.

According to Smoke's general manager Glenn Mori, the new shop will be about 900 square feet and will seat 15.

The opening will represent as much as a 50 per cent increase in jobs for the company, adding between 10 and 15 positions to the quickly expanding company's current 30.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Smoke's Poutinerie

For all its Jane Jacobsian charm and vigour, the Annex strip of Bloor Street is not exactly a diner's delight, unless you really, really like sushi. And if you're looking for Italian, that most basic of North American culinary imports, you've been pretty much out of luck since ZiZi Trattoria closed (at the same location that Red House Dim Sum did a few years later).

Now Gabby's brand Hey Lucy, well known as an inexpensive (and as a result often crowded) option on the King West theatre strip, has moved into the space abruptly vacated by Mel's Montreal Delicatessen.

Renovating since October, during which they got rid of everything but the exposed brick and the ceilings, the casual 92-seat restaurant with a wood-burning oven and regular $3.99 martini specials, had a soft opening Dec. 29, and will have its grand opening on Jan. 29.

According to general manager Brian Taylor, it employs 8 back of house staff and another 12 in the front.

Taylor describes the Hey Lucy concept as Gabby's foray into "finer dining," explaining that they "don't want to be fine dining. It's a more casual atmosphere, exclusive to no one."

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Hey Lucy

He's right. Minto itself has two other LEED certified condo buildings. Radiance@Minto Gardens (at Yonge and Sheppard) was the first multi-unit high-rise to achieve any sort of LEED certification in Canada, and the Minto Roehampton (near Yonge and Mt Pleasant) was the first multi-family building in Canada to get Gold.

But it's not just Minto, Tridel is also pinning much of its public image on its greenery. And in the commercial realm, on Oct. 1, Cadillac Fairview opened its 1.2million square foot RBC Centre at 155 Wellington, which was also built to LEED Gold standards (though it's not yet been certified).

As part of its certification, more than half of the building materials used to construct the two towers came from less than 600 km away, including several significant ingredients, like concrete and fill, coming from the GTA itself. The towers also collect and redistribute rainwater, have Zip cars available onsite for sharing, and have 5 bicycles per tower for owner and tenant use.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Minto Group Inc

The Schoolhouse is part of the recent major overhaul of the section of Brunswick Avenue between Bloor and Barton, which has also seen a former rental house transforrmed into two luxury semi-detached homes (405 and 407 Brunswick), and the Loretto Abbey Lofts, right next door to the Schoolhouse, designed by Quadrangle Architects and architectsAlliance and built by Context Developments out of what used to be a residential component of the Loretto educational complex.

For the past year or so, cranes have been adding storeys to the top of what has for decades looked like an office building (designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects). And for decades, it's mostly been an office building, with "mostly" being the operative term, because for those same decades, since 1961 in fact, there's been a two-storey apartment on top, on the 13^th and 14^th floors. It was built for and occupied exclusively by the late Noah and Rose Torno, who'd made their money as developers (and one of the few places in Toronto designed by famed architect Phillip Johnson).

Nine years ago, Jon Love, whose own family made their money running the publicly held Oxford Properties Group (which in fact once owned the building), decided that one perfect urban apartment might be profitably transformed into 15.

Along with Quadrangle architect Brian Curtner, a team consisting of Love's KingSett Capital and builder Joe Brennan put together Toronto's only equivalent to 740 Park Avenue, home at various times to Edgar Bronfman Sr. (and old friend of the Tornos), John D. Rockefeller and a few Chryslers, and dubbed by author Michael Gross "the world's richest apartment building," where units have been listed recently for as much as $75 million.

Early rumours have the highest asking price at 155 Cumberland closer to $25 million. Most of the units, which range between about 4,500 and 6,000 square feet, sold in the low- to middle seven-figure range. But like 740 Park, this building's biggest asset to its owners is its discretion. You have to know it's there to know it's there, and you have to know who lives there to know who lives there. Love has come clean to say he does, and Brennan bought a place (though whether he's going to live there is another question). As for the others, it's anyone's guess.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: emporis.com