Financial District : Development News

Chief city planner Jennifer Keesmaat is the star of a new short film by Freeman House Productions, a Toronto firm doing a series about creative people called The Guild. The project does Keesmaat, and the city, a big favour. In the seven-and-a-half-minute black-and-white film, Keesmaat  makes urban planning sound like fun.

“I believe we are inherently creative as a species,” she says at the outset. “I'm a city-builder. I build cities every day. That's my job.

“It's really tricky for me to walk down the street without looking at the shape of a building, the way the entrances are shaped, the width of a sidewalk.”

Though people looking for Toronto specifics will be disappointed – this little film is all blue-sky, big-picture stuff – the way Keesmaat thinks about her profession, as a mix of engineering and art, should make us all sleep a little better at night as our city, as dreamt up by her, coalesces around us.

Writer: Bert Archer

Pop-up shops tend to pop-up and pop back down again just as quickly, but Brika popped, stayed, and expanded.

Founded by Jen Lee Koss and Kena Paranjape as an online seller of "craft, elevated" in December, 2012, Brika popped up into the offline world in October in a 300 square foot space the two negotiated in the basement of The Bay on Queen Street in exchange for a cut of the revenues.

Brika is part of a stream of pop-ups popping up around the city, especially around West Queen West and the East Danforth, taking advantage of neighbourhoods intransition, where old shops are closing, but new boutiques haven't yet found the confidence -- or the cash -- to move in permanently.

"We knew we wanted to pop-up somewhere," says Koss, an Oxford-educated former investment manager, "and we had discussions with various retailers." Ultimately, The Bay ended up being the best fit.

Though the online end features objects designed and made all over the world, the shop is all-Canadian, with about 80 per cent being from Ontario, and a good deal from Toronto itself, like a set of wooden cufflinks with stags or anchors burned into them by Vancouver’s Valerie Thai.

After a successful holiday season, they decided to stick around a little longer, and doubled their size.

Koss says it’s not permanent, though, explaining that despite good foot traffic, they don’t plan to stay past Mother’s Day, which can be a sort of second Christmas for the woman-oriented business. Many small, typically online retailers are opting for similar options, choosing pop-ups as an alternative to the conventional brick-and-mortar building. 

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jen Lee Koss

Toronto design firm Union31 was recognized three times at a recent industry gala for its interior designs of a high-end condo and two condo sales centres.

The high-end condo – one of the discreet units at 155 Cumberland – is obvious prize bait, but according to Union31 principal Kelly Cray, sales or presentation centres can be designer catnip.

"There's a certain gratification," he says, speaking about the two award-winning projects he worked on for Tridel towers. "They happen so quickly…. Getting to see something go from start to finish in eight to 10 weeks is pretty gratifying."

Though it's design by committee – the designers have to come up with their approach in consultation with the developer and their marketers – there’s a certain freedom that comes with the tight deadlines, allowing the designer to sometimes overlook minor details in pursuit of the greater aesthetic.

Both presentation centres use materials from the exterior of the buildings in question – 101 Erskine, 300 Front and 10 York – in the design of the interiors, both to give a taste of the as-yet unbuilt buildings to potential buyers, as well as bring together inside and out in the final product, which Union31 will also be designing.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Kelly Cray

If  you’ve been to lower Yonge Street at any point this summer, you’ll have noticed that Temperance Street, located just north of Adelaide, has utterly changed.

It used to be a side street. At some point, there was a café there haunted mostly by bike couriers. It was the sort of street that even native downtowners might not be able to place if it came up in conversation (which, naturally, it never would).

But thanks to developer Clayton Smith, it’s now the place to be on lower Yonge.

With Dineen Café right on the corner, backed up by The Chase Fish & Oyster and, upstairs, the higher-end Chase (with its rooftop balcony), all with sidewalk patios, the street is precisely what Woodcliffe wants Market Street to be, and what MOD Developments wants for St. Nicholas Street, part of its Five St. Joseph development, to be: A lively, populated street that serves both the developer’s building and becomes a neighbourhood hub. The fact that Smith has succeeded ought to give hope to those other developers, and also raise the bar for them.

"It's tough to find those unique destinations in the core," Smith says. "King West has that kind of feel, and by the Mirvish buildings, but not in the core really. That was the vision."

One of the reasons it’s so populated is that the renovation, a pristine example of adaptive reuse, was done so thoroughly and so well.

"We had some tremendous trades on the site," Smith says, quick to point out where that particular portion of the credit is due. "The copper work was amazing."

Some of the other credit goes to architect George Robb and Empire Restoration.

But it's Smith's baby, and his wheelhouse. He's also the guy who recently bought the Flatiron Building from the city’s other prominent restorative developer, Woodcliffe.

It's not the most profitable way of going about developing a site. Smith admits it would have been cheaper to tear the 117-year-old building down and put up something more straightforward. He even found a 2009 demolition permit issued to a previous owner. (Phew.)

But he’s not interested in that kind of developing. He even refused Starbucks' enthusiastic offer to take the corner space from him on very favourable terms, and leased it to John Young to make the Dineen Café, named for the building, itself named for its original owner and occupier, W. and D. Dineen Co. hatters and furriers.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Clayton Smith

On Monday, the final phase of the revitalization of Nathan Phillips Square will begin.

Construction hoarding will go up Monday morning, behind which for the next 18 months, the rest of the planned improvements for the city’s principle square will be completed. This includes finishing off the relocated Peace Garden, moving Sir Winston to the northwest part of the square, refurbishing the underground parking, and landscaping the southwest portion of the space.

According to the city, this final phase of the work is being completed in two stages to minimize its effect on traffic, food trucks, and the various events to be held in the square over the year.

Work started on overhauling the 45-year-old square in April, 2010, when the old skate pavilion was demolished to kick off the new design by Plant Architect and Shore Tilbe Irwin, which won a Canadian Architect magazine award of excellence in 2007, the year it was executed.

The original design of the square, including City Hall, was itself the result of a competition, held in 1957-58, and won by Finnish architect Viljo Revell.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Natasha Hinds Fitzsimmins

Jump, known in the pre-Plenty of Fish-and-Grindr world as the premier spot for business people to meet each other, has just re-opened after its most extensive renovation in the landmark bar and restaurant’s 20-year history.

The first in the now ubiquitous Oliver and Bonacini chain, Jump opened in 1993 as a hopeful investment in a financial district still smarting from the 1989-90 crash.

"This was one of our smoothest construction jobs," says Theresa Suraci, O&B’s director of marketing and communications. "We shut for a month, which is always a very challenging schedule when you’re doing as much work as we did but I think they ran into very few hiccoughs."

The renovation cost $1 million, which Suraci takes some pleasure in pointing out is what it cost to build the establishment in the first place.

The press release announcing the re-opening describes the new interior as "intimate" with "Cognac-coloured leathers, tones of charcoal grey and warm amber woods."

"We are celebrating 20 years in business," says co-owner Michael Bonacini, who left his job at Centro to join Peter Oliver in the new venture, "and there are certainly times in a restaurant’s life when it needs a little TLC. That said, it’s still the solid bones of Jump. It just needed a facelift to make it feel more current and vibrant. That’s essential in the restaurant industry, especially in the very competitive downtown core.

"Whenever you renovate in a building in the downtown core, you’re dealing with one of the most challenging projects imaginable, given that it directly affects an asset worth millions of dollars.  In this case we’re working around say 5,000 occupants of the building, all affected by things like deliveries, offloading, noise, vibrations and general safety factors. For instance, we needed to core through a concrete slab in order to move a fire hose cabinet, requiring us to x-ray the concrete to assess issues of structural rebar or electrical conduit. The problem is that no one can be within 150 feet at the time the x-ray is taken, which means that due to the close proximity of the escalators and subway below, we had only a couple of hours in the middle of the night to possibly schedule the procedure.  It took us seven days just to coordinate the scheduling. These types of renovations are infinitely complicated."

Jump is located at 18 Wellington Street, just west of Yonge. 

Writer: Bert Archer
Sources: Theresa Suraci, Michael Bonacini

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

One King West is about to launch its two-storey hospitality suite, expanding the space the city has for meetings, celebrations, and rich people who want a lot of space.

According to spokeswoman Ashley Calapatia, the 2,500 square feet, which includes the terrace, can accommodate up to 60 guests, and an additional 30 in what she calls its "boardroom configuration."

The meeting space and the suite, which can be used overnight, are on separate floors.

The interiors were designed by Squarefoot Design Inc.

One King West Hotel and Residence, originally conceived and built by developer Harry Stinson, was completed in 2006. It consists of a 51-storey tower built on top of the Dominion Bank Building, which was initially completed in 1914 by famed Toronto architects Darling and Pearson.

No word yet on when the launch will take place, but it should be this month.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ashley Calapatia

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

As more developers and property managers ho on the green bandwagon, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish one’s self from the crowd. The TD Centre has decided to release a full report of its 2012 performance in what general manager David Hoffman calls a "360 interconnected approach."

"We have done a lot, we have pioneered a lot," Hoffman says. "We have been innovative and we simply want to put it together in one package."

The innovation includes their occupant engagement program, their quarterly Green Council, their green brain trust and their daytime cleaning program, which Hoffman says half of his tenants have opted for.

But the biggest thing for Hoffman is how this report differs from the way most large organizations report their carbon results.

"This is the first time in North America that a project-level sustainability report has been put together separate from its parent organization," he says. "We’re doing it at a property level, an asset level."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: David Hoffman

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

On January 15, Menkes broke ground on the one hectare site that will house the commercial portion of 1 York and ultimately extend the undergound PATH system south of Front Street.

The 35-storey, 800,000 square foot office building, which will include three levels and 200,000 square feet of retail, will cost about $500 million, including $375 million for construction, according to president Peter Menkes.

"We did it in conjunction with Oxford Properties," Menkes says, "who are building the new HQ of RBC to the south of us. They committed to do that and they came to us. It’s a big deal for everybody." Menkes says including the PATH extension was, for this project, equivalent to including elevators and a parking lot. "The real issue is that you wouldn’t be able to get companies like RBC to go there if you didn’t have it. Just like if you had stairs and no elevators in the building."

In conjunction with this construction, the city is eliminating the Gardiner ramps at York and replacing them with ramps to and from Simcoe Street, leaving a one-acre park adjacent to 1 York.

Menkes expects the tower to be complete by June, 2016, by which time two residential towers on the larger site, known as 1 York/90 Harbour and designed in its entirely by Architects Alliance and &Co., will be well underway.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Menkes

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

Google Canada's got some new digs.

As of the middle of last month, Google Canada's Toronto office moved from its rather inauspicious space in the Dundas Square Cineplex building to 89,000 square feet on five floors of a stately Peter Dickinson tower on Richmond Street West, just behind the opera house.

There have for years been stories out of Mountain View, California of Google's wonderful HQ with its over-the-top amenities, ad now, it seems, Google Canada's decided it worth following suit.

I took a tour of the place last week with Aaron Brindle, Google Canada's communications manager. It's not quite finished yet— there are still some cartographically themed graphics to go into some stairwells, and one floor is still entirely unoccupied, though it's fully furnished.

But they do have a DJ room. And a jam room, where employees can use the full complement of instruments and gear to play and even record. Also, there's food—lots of it.

"I don't think any employee is ever more than 150 feet away from food," Brindle said. Walking down the hallways you run into jars of candy, freezers of ice cream, the occasional mini-kitchen, all in addition to the main dining room, where meals prepared by Google's chef are served five days a week.

It's almost as if Google wanted people to have something to write about when they opened.

There are also more obviously productive spaces, like the 42 conference, phone or "huddle" rooms sprinkled about the place.

Carpets are made from salvaged fishnets, and the walls are lined with reclaimed wood, all of which was designed and executed by Google in consultation with HOK.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Aaron Brindle

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

Construction started Monday on a new section of the PATH system.

The underground system is already the world's biggest, with 28 kilimetres of idiosyncratically signed pathways connecting hundreds of retail shops underneath the city's largest office and residential towers from Atrium on Bay in the north down to Union Station in the south.

"We are adding a new section to the PATH system beginning at the northwest corner of Union Station," says John Kelly, acting head of the city's technical services division. "It's going to be constructed in two phases. We're adding about 200 metres from Union Station up to Wellington. The first phase is starting construction today, getting us from southwest corner of Front and York to the northwest corner of Front Street and York Street. It's only about 70 metres worth of tunnel, that will get you to an exit pavilion on that corner."

The expansion is meant ot relieve some existing pedestrian congestion, and to prepare for the expected increased in use of the system after Union Station's exansion.

The original budget for both phases (the second takes the PATH up to Wellington and York) was $65 million, but in the years since it was approved in 2007, it's risen to $105 million. The city is looking into potential assistance from the province and the federal government.

Since all the land being developed in this addition is city-owned, there will be no extra retail added.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: John Kelly

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

Bay street's getting a new fresco next week thanks to Lanterra's taste in public art.

The developer's using its one per cent—the portion of the building costs the city obliges they put aside for public art—for a series of large pieces by Italian artist Sandro Martini.

"We've always sold or projects not just on the units themselves but on the amenities space around it," says Lanterra CEO Barry Fenton.

The glass works, the largest of which is about 150 feet by 100 feet, will occupy a 3,500-square-foot, 50-foot-high retail space in a sort of glass box at street level on the north side of the already colourful Burano condo tower on the east side of the street. Though there's no tenant yet, Fenton figures it'll be a coffee shop or restaurant.

Fenton estimates the cost of the works to be between $500,000 and $600,000. The commission resulted from a public competition Lanterra held in Italy.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Barry Fenton

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Excavation on the $137.5-million Union Station platform addition is now complete.

The project, which began in January of last year, will add another passenger platform on the south side of the rails to relieve the congestion on the current single platform. The TTC estimates that 250,000 people use the station each day, making it the sixth busiest station in the system.

In addition to the extra platform and expanded concourse, the project includes a new connection to the PATH system, access south to the waterfront and an elevator and ramp to link the station with Union’s rail station, which is also being overhauled.

The work is expected to be finished by 2014.

Workers are now occupied with demolition, pouring concrete and waterproofing .

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Samantha Gileno

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

One hundred Wellington has become the first tower in Toronto to be given LEED Platinum certification.

The Canada Green Building Council made it official this week, recognizing the work Halsall Associates and the TD Centre have done over the past several years, which has included earning LEED Gold status for the centre as a whole.

In order to achieve this level of carbon efficiency, the building had to demonstrate its performance in several areas, including having a sustainable site, being water efficient, having sufficiently low energy use, using materials and resources in a sustainable way and having a high level of what's known as "indoor environmental quality," which includes being smoke-free and using environmentally friendly cleaning products.

In addition to these infrastructural improvements, the TD Centre has also planted a green roof, made up of a grid of sedge grass to cool the roof, and set up what they're calling a green portal to allow both tenants and the public to track energy use in the complex.

Writer: Bert Archer

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

One of Victorian Toronto's few surviving Yonge Street mid-rises is getting a new lease on life.

iQ Office Suites has taken two of the four storeys of 140 Yonge Street, at the northwest corner of Temperance, and spent about $1 million turning them into full-service, flexible office space.

The offices will be launching October 1.

Partners Alex Sharpe and Kane Willmott, who plan to expand  iQ into other, similar properties, see what they do as a sort of more accessible version of Woodcliffe's renowned character office spaces. They spent about eight months in renovation, with much of the time and expense devoted to exposing or restoring original details of the Renaissance Revival building. "The building was pretty neglected for the better part of 60 years," Sharpe says.

The interiors were stripped to the original brick, copper detailing around the windows was exposed, and a blacksmith was hired to restore the exterior ironwork. The exterior renovations were funded by the building's owner, Commercial Realty Group, the company that recently bought the Gooderham Building from Woodcliffe. The renovations were overseen by Empire Restoration.

Office space is available from $1,500-$4,900 a month.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Alex Sharpe

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