The Junction : 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

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].

When the Junction Festival starts today, there'll be a new public space to celebrate in.

Locally known as the Cobblestone Public Space, it's a little bit of orphan land created when the city fiddled with traffic flow in the 1980s, cutting off a bit of St John's Road at Dundas. They put down cobblestone to make it pretty, planted a few trees, and a public space was born.

The space has now been reborn under the direction of Councillor Bill Saundercook and a neighbourhood committee -- including local architect Mark Rokowski from High Park Architects -- which has weeded the place, installed a gazebo and added seating in the form of about a dozen squared-off limestone boulders. The revitalized space debuted last Thursday.

The budget for the whole project was $94,902.23, plus HST.

"The whole atmosphere is quite different," Saundercook says.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Bill Saundercook

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].

All three levels of government announced their support of alternative routes to home ownership last week by giving $2.5 million to fund Home Ownership Alternatives and Option for Homes' latest project, the 643-unit Village by High Park condo tower in the Junction at Dundas and Keele, on the site of the old Canadian Tire.

The funding will provide financial backing for buyers of 108 units in the building.

"These new units will provide quality, affordable housing for low income households and benefit the economic and social well- being of the entire community," said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in a press release.

"This investment will allow more people to realize their dream of owning a home which is a key ingredient of the City's 10-year affordable housing action plan," said city councilor Gord Perks. The plans calls for assistance for 257,700 households.

With this contribution the value for the average second mortgage offered to help prospective home buyers with a down payment will be $53,000.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Sharon Rego

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].

Options for Homes, the city's developer of low-cost housing that offers buyers a second mortgage they can use toward their down payment to increase their likelihood of being accepted for a mortgage, has reached the halfway point in their Junction project.

On Keele just north of Dundas, the 643-unit, two-tower building, somewhat misleadingly called The Village by High Park, broke ground in August of 2008 and will probably be ready for residents beginning this summer, with final completion and occupancy early next year if the trades, many of which are currently renegotiating their contracts, don't strike. Construction costs are estimated at $170 per square foot. With a total of about 560,000 square feet, the project's construction budget is estimated to be about $95 million.

"We tend to go for land that is in up and coming neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods on the cusp, because it's less expensive, so we can keep our prices lower," says marketing co-ordinator Jessica Speziale. Options for Homes, which also has projects planned for Bathurst and Lawrence and in Barrie, were early develops in the Distillery District area, building their light brick towers in the late 90s, before the district was renovated and rebranded.

The Junction condos range in size from 455 square feet for a bachelor to 1190 square feet for a three bedroom, and in price from $143,000 to $324,000.

Though no commercial tenants have yet been signed, there will also be retail on the ground level along Keele.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jessica Speziale

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].

There have been ways for Junctionalians to convince themselves that, despite the opening of the city's best caf� (Crema), one of its best hand-made organic chocolate shops (Delight) and a full-blown organic grocer (Sweet Potato), the Junction was still just the Junction.

That illusion may be a little harder to maintain for anyone who's walked by 3073 Dundas West recently and seen the Tailwaggers sign in the old Skyway Cleaners window. As of May 1, the Junction will be home to its own doggie daycare centre. There's no going back now.

"We're at the painting stage, and well be laying the floors in the next week or two," says Tailwagger owner and long-time dog-walker Adria Kowalski, who bought the building, which had been listed at $549,000, in February with her boyfriend, Ehren Davey.

Kowalski's plan is to make Tailwaggers a boutique-style daycare centre for a maximum of 20 dogs, "a higher-end place, with chandeliers and dog banquettes and toys and agility equipment," says Kowalski, who grew up in nearby Baby Point and had her first date with her current partner at Axis Bar and Grill just across the street from her new venture.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adria Kowalski

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].

As anyone who lives in the Junction will already be aware, the distinctive old Handyman Shop hardware store at 3077 Dundas Street West, rumoured to have started out life as a court house, has collapsed and is being rebuilt.

Though the new owners of the site, Irka Firchuk and Peter Dunn, did not make themselves available for comment, locals had heard as early as last July that in the course of renovations, a load-bearing wall had been removed that had affected the structural integrity of the building.

According to a source close to the project who declined to be identified pending permission from the owners, the new building, at the southeast corner of Dundas and Quebec, will be a reproduction of the old building, complete with curved front, with a third floor added on, possibly for residential purposes.

There's no word on who the main commercial tenant will be, and the building is currently for sale.

 

Writer: Bert Archer