city building : Development News

The 48-storey tower at the centre of what will be a model development in a city overrun by build-and-bolt condos has reached its halfway point.

"I'm not sure exactly where it is today, but we're in the 20s," says Gary Switzer, founder of MOD Developments. "The steel framing is off the façade of the old warehouse, and as soon as the weather gets better, the front will start getting the brickwork restored and the windows replaced."

Though 40+-storey towers are nothing new in this city, whose skyline has been reshaped over the past decade, Switzer's sense of responsibility to the property around it is.

As we've remarked before in these pages, Switzer isn’t just building a tower, he's reconstructing a neighbourhood, refurbishing five storefronts on Yonge Street, and attempting to re-establish St. Nicolas lane, which runs south of St. Joseph between the tower and Yonge, into a commercially viable and locally attractive strip.

Yonge Street has for decades, possibly forever, been a street of great potential, but has had some trouble realizing it. The city tried to spruce things up a bit of a decde or so ago with its façade improvement funding scheme, but only a couple of businesses took advantage. But now that there’s someone with condo money looking to contribute a bit of spit and elbow grease to the noble but tired and put-upon three- and four-storey early-century buildings that form Yonge’s frontage, there’s a possibility of some positive contagion.

"As soon as that shrouding comes off, we'll be demonstrating how amazing some of those buildings can look with a little TLC," Switzer says, saying the hoarding will probably come down in the next couple of months.

As for the commercial tenants, on Yonge, St Joseph and St Nicholas, though the only tenant announced so far is the Royal Bank, it’s Switzer’s aim, and that of his broker, Jane Baldwin, to stay away from the usual anchors.

"The rents are relatively high on Yonge," Switzer says, "but they’re lower on St. Joseph, and definitely lower on St. Nicholas, so you don’t have to go to somebody like a chain. You can get an entrepreneur when the rents aren’t so high."

Switzer expects the tower and the Yonge Street buildings to be finished sometime in 2015.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gary Switzer
Photos: Constuction image courtesy of Atlantis at Urban Toronto.

The official handover was Dec. 31, they got the keys on Jan. 6, and if you go down to Broadview and Gerard today, you may see the windows coming off. It’s the end of the road for the Toronto Jail.

According to Shawna Curtis, a spokeswoman for Bridgepoint, the medical operation that runs the nearby hospital and has already occupied the old Don Jail building, the place should be gone by April, May at the latest.

In its place? A park.

"It will be knocked down and made into green space," Curtis says of the red brick building built in 1958 as an addition to its more famous predecessor, "with Blue Rodeo Way between that little piece of land and the old Don Jail."

Blue Rodeo Way, named for the band with strong Riverdale connections (their studio is nearby, and lead Jim Cuddy is a longtime Riverdalian) will link up with Jack Layton Way and Bridgepoint Drive.

The old Don Jail next door, which shut down in 1977 and was scheduled for demolition after it was deemed too dank and cold to be used for anything else, is now home to the offices of, among other Bridgepoint corporate employees, Shawna Curtis. Apparently, it’s a fine place to work.

"They've really paid a lot of attention to the inside o the building," she says. "It's an incredibly workable building."

Landscaping of the old Toronto Jail site is expected to start in May. PCL is in charge of the demolition.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Shawna Curtis

The first step in the reimagining of what was once Ontario Place is underway, and the province is presenting its initial ideas to the public on the 22nd.

This is the second of four planned public meetings on the subject. The first, in early December, introduced interested folks to the design team.

The first phase of a multi-year redevelopment, according to an announcement the province made in June, will be a new park and waterfront trail.

"The new public space will be open and accessible to Ontarians, creating much-needed green space and access to the waterfront," says Charles Millett, a manager with the communications branch of the Ontario government. "The new park and trail will serve as an anchor for future development on the rest of the site."

The consultations will continue through the spring, at which point a decision will be made as to what, exactly, will be done.

"Engaging with Ontarians on the park design is a priority for us," Millet says. "The design process for the park will be collaborative to ensure that Ontarians’ ideas and comments are reflected in the final design."

The current goal is to have the park and trail completed by 2015.

And what then?

"The scale and complexity of this project means that it needs to be completed in phases to ensure the transformation is done in the best possible way," says Millett. "It is too early to say what the next phase of revitalization will include. The new public park and waterfront trail will serve as an anchor for future development on the site."

Writer; Bert Archer
Source: Charlene Millett

Photo by Tanja-Tiziana.

You wouldn’t think street food would be this difficult.

After years of mayonnaiseless hot dogs being pretty much the extent of what’s legal to sell on Toronto streets, and several recent attempts at something different – including the failed A La Cart program and last summer’s pilot project -- the city is holding a public meeting on the subject to ask for our advice.

According to Tammy Robinson, who works in the city’s communications department, the issues include how permits are issued, whether the moratorium on street food should be lifted from wards 20, 27 ad 28, how much space a vendor can occupy on a sidewalk, and how close they can be to restaurants.

Presumably you'll also be able to raise your voice for your favourite food. Been dreaming of street spaghetti since the first time you saw Lady and the Tramp when you were five? Now's your chance.

The meeting is being held Jan. 20 from 6-8 p.m. at City Hall’s Committee Room 2.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Tammy Robinson

A new LCBO opened in at the Parkway Mall on Ellesmere Road in Scarborough, roughly 50 per cent larger than the one it's replacing.

At 12,000 square feet, the new shop will have 1,875 drinks of various sorts, including 300 Ontario wines, and the walk-in beer fridges, with 650 linear feet of shelved beer. These fridges are becoming standard in the new shops to compete with the foreign-owned Beer Stores.

According to LCBO spokeswoman Lisa Murray, the store serves a population of about 60,000 in the Ellesmere/Victoria Park area, a number that the LCBO expects to grow by about 3 per cent in the next decade.

The LCBO, which turns more than a billion and a half dollars in profit annually, bases its decision to add or expand stores on extensive demographic research, which makes new and expanded shops good bellwethers of change, growth and often economic iprovements in a neighbourhood.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Lisa Murray

The nation’s tallest condo is slowly filling out.

Madonna’s gym, Hard Candy, was the big news in November, and the woman herself will be showing up in February to give it her four minutes or so. In the meantime, the first two restaurants opened in the food court underground, Sushi BBbop and Kaiju, with several more in the offing, joining the 50 or so vendors that have moved into the 130-shop space downstairs from Bed, Bath and Beyond and Marshalls, and the 300 residents who have already moved into the lower levels of the 78-storey tower while work continues up above.

"We have poured the top residential floor, and now we're working on the mechanical rooftop, which is going to take a little while because there's about four or five floors of that," says Riz Dhanji, vice president of sales and marketing for developer Canderel Residential.

That top residential floor is going for $18.3 million for the, five-bedroom, 11,370 square foot unit.

According to Dhanji, work is just starting on the park Canderel is collaborating with the city on, and giving $3.5 million towards the development of under the city’s Section 37 stipulations.

Dhanji expects the building, with its 985 condos and 180,000 square feet of retail, will be completed by June or July.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Riz Dhanji

Photos by Bert Archer.

Last year did not do much for Toronto’s image as an intelligent city. But Waterfront Toronto is looking to turn that all around in 2014.

For the second time in as many years, Waterfront is spearheading Toronto’s application to the Intelligent Community Foundation in the hopes of being named the world’s most intelligent city. Out of more than 400 applications, we’ve already made it to the top 21, and at the end of this month, we’ll find out if we made the final seven, as we did in 2005 and again last year.

Cities are judged by the foundation on criteria such as digital inclusion strategies and the status of their knowledge-based workforce. The 2011 winner, Eindhoven, Netherlands, is known for its Brainport, a public-private project that’s controibuted 55,000 jobs over the past decade. Last year’s winner, Taichung City, Taiwan, is known for its environmental friendliness.

According to Kristina Verner, Waterfront Toronto’s director of intelligent communities, Toronto is already becoming known in global circles for building the only community in which the principles of intelligent communities are, in the words of people who speak of such things, baked in.

"We're serving as a catalyst for the city of Toronto," Verner says of the work going on at the Waterfront. "We're a living lab, not just for the city, but for other cities in North America."

According to Verner, winning the competition would drastically increase the city's so-called brand recognition in the community of site selectors – corporate types who decide where in the world facilities will be built – as well as governments looking to collaborate on large projects, as Eindhoven did with Waterloo, which won the title in 2007.

If Toronto makes it to the final seven, it moves on to the final phase, the results of which are to be announced in New York in June.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Kristina Verner

Photos courtesy of Waterfront Toronto.

After the ice, and the branches and wires and crushed cars, things looked bad. The city didn’t make it any better by saying as much as 20 per cent of the city's tree canopy had been destroyed and that people wouldn't have to apply for licenses to take down damaged trees.

"I was concerned," says Councillor Sarah Doucette (Ward 13 Parkdale-High Park), the city's tree advocate. She called in to the city, and was assured that people would have to take pictures of the damaged tree to prove it needed to be taken down. How effective this will be remains to be seen, though the councillor, who lost half of one tree and the entirety of another in her own yard, says if you take the city's hasty announcement as a license for arborcide, "We will come after you."

That 20 per cent figure also concerns her.

"I think that was a very quick ballpark," she says. "We need arborists to go out and look at these. Can we prune this tree and will it come back? But we’re really not going to know for another few years."

And as far as Doucette is concerned, those years should be spent taking a sylvan lesson or two from High Park.

"I drove through High Park after the storm," Doucette says of the park that forms a large part of her ward, "because I wanted to see what sort of devastation we had in the park. There wasn’t any devastation. Some of the branches came down, but for the size of the park, we didn’t have that much damage, and that’s because they maintain and prune the trees. If the city can put more money into pruning our city trees, we wouldn’t be losing branches like this during storms."

She also suggests there should be some education available for residents on the importance of tree maintenance to avoid the mess, damage and potential injury after storms like December’s.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source; Sarah Doucette

After 12 years on the back shelf, the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus is going ahead with a new "innovation complex."

"The Innovation Complex is a new facility that will house UTM's signature Institute for Management and Innovation (IMI)," says Deep Saini, principal of UTM. "The Institute is taking a novel approach to management education by offering sector-specific management education. IMI will be focused on educating mission-oriented graduates whose skills are aligned to specific sectors of industry and commerce, and who are deft at translating novel ideas into innovative applications for the society’s benefit.

"In addition to strong undergraduate programs in commerce and business administration, IMI also offers established and new professional graduate degrees in key economic sectors such as biotechnology, health care, professional accounting and environmental sustainability. UTM plans to grow student enrolment in IMI by 35 per cent – or by 700 – and hire approximately 30 new professors from around the world. Some space in the new building will be also occupied by administrative and academic offices, especially those involved in enrolment management."

The project is being funded by $25 million from U of T and a newly announced $10 million from the city of Mississauga.

The centre, which is being built on an open space behind the existing Kaneff Centre, will be headed up by Professor Hugh Ganz.

Writer: Bert Archer    
Source: Deep Saini

The first building on Waterfront's East Bayfront isn't going to break ground until next year, but before the condos comes the infrastructure, and East Bayfront's going to need a lot of it.

The13-acre site, being developed by Tridel and Hines under the name Bayside, will require a continuation of the water's edge promenade, new public streets and stormwater management.

In the fall, crews began reinforcing the dockwall I preparation for the promenade, and demolition and various other forms of site preparation began.

"Over the next few months, crews will begin the stormwater management facility for the development, continue with the construction of municipal services -- watermain, Hydro -- and dockwall reinforcemen," says Samantha Gileno of Waterfront Toronto. "Promenade construction will begin March, 2014."

East Bayfront is part of the massive effort by the city to rehabilitate its waterfront, which has not served the city at all well since its industrial days.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Samantha Gileno

Building is always harder than destroying, but rebuilding may be harder still.

According to Carl Blanchaer, principal architect at WZMH, though it may be tempting for developers and other investors to tear down and start fresh, rebuilding, in the form known as adaptive re-use, may be the best bet for all concerned.

He gave his talk at the recent Construct Canada conference at the Metro Convention Centre, trying to convince builders, developers and others in the trades to think twice before knocking down.

One of the main examples he used were two projects he and his firm worked on in Toronto, 111 Richmond Street and 222 Jarvis.

With its brutalist style, the latter -- the Ontario government building formerly known as the Sears Building -- was not an obvious candidate for reclamation. But with every developer looking to at least appear green, nothing says “sustainable” like not wasting building material, or the carbon needed to demolish.

"The project has become a flagship for government initiatives in the use of sustainable building and planning approaches in the reconstruction of downtown office buildings," says the WZMH site, "and a catalyst for neighbourhood revitalization."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Carl Blanchaer

Despite its fatal business model, Bixi will survive, but it won’t be Bixi anymore.

The city has decided to take it over, handing the management of the troubled Montreal-based bike-sharing program to the Toronto Parking Authority until they can find a suitable management company with expertise in this area.

"One of the primary reasons Bixi is having trouble in Toronto is their business model was based on covering both the capital costs and the operating costs from operating revenue," says Daniel Egan, the city’s manager of cycling infrastructure. "It became pretty clear after a year that it wasn’t feasible."

As of Dec. 2, Bixi no is no longer connected to its parent company, and is wholly owned by the City of Toronto, which assumed its costs. The Parking Authority will run it until April when it hopes to have found a new manager, and when it will likely take a new name.

There is still a plan to expand the system by 22 stations net year, though moving north of Bloor is unlikely.

The handover is being funded, oddly, with $5 million that would have gone to paying for several public toilets pledged by a city media partner. This will cover a $3.6-million capital loan, with the extra $1.4 million being used for interim operating costs, and to contribute to a reserve fund that will pay for capital costs. The fund will also receive $70,000 annually from the city's transportation budget, and will be a recipient of so-called Section 37 money gathered by the city from property developers to fund city projects in the public interest.

Though Egan believes the program can be run better than it has been, he does not believe it can ever be profitable. "The goal is to break even," he says. "There's no illusion that it’s a money-maker. But we’re looking to make this program sustainable in the long term."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Daniel Egan

It turns out when you ask the business community to cut their energy use, and they find out that it also saves them money, they go green like gangbusters.

Civic Action announced last week that the Race to Reduce, a voluntary campaign among Toronto’s commercial landlords and their clients to shave their energy use by 10 per cent in four years, was two years ahead of schedule, with consumption to the end of 2012 - figures that have just been compiled and analyzed -- down nine per cent ahead of their end-of-2014 schedule.

Brad Henderson, a senior managing regional director for CBRE and Race co-chair, is proud of what they’ve been able to collectively do so far.

"There was a lot of heavy lifting in the early days," he says. "We needed to establish process, we needed to get consensus on how information on energy reduction would be collected, measures and reported.  We also determined that it was important to collect and document case studies and tools used by participants as a way to help accelerate achievement by other companies.  While this work has been completed, there is a lot more work to be done."

The fact that they were able to do as much as they were is largely attributable to the fact that in the first few years of what's expected to be an ongoing program, Race participants were mostly large landlords and large tenants with, Henderson says, "considerable resources to mount significant energy reduction programs."

Programs included switching to LED lamps, converting to 100 per cent daytime cleaning to reduce lights used after hours, and decommissioning inefficient transformers.

(The Commercial Building Energy Leadership Council, made up of landlords and tenants representing 175 buildings and 67 million square feet, set their own reduction goals.)

The big challenge now, Henderson says, is that they've started recruiting smaller players. "As a result," he says, "achieving success of energy reduction will get harder and harder. Notwithstanding, the Race to Reduce participants are dedicated to persevere."

The Council is scheduled to set its new goals in January.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Brad Henderson

City Hall sent out a press release last week that sounded like it might be big news. If you’re renovating your home, and can’t reasonably use it for at least three months, you don’t have to pay property tax on it.

Sounds like a good deal.

But it's also an old deal.

"This provision has always been there," says Casey Brendon, the city's director of revenue services. And by always, he means since way back before amalgamation.

So why the press release?

"It's partially related to the fact that these applications are heard routinely by the government management committee, which has had at least two changes in chairs," he says, "and we had these new councillors coming in, saying 'I didn’t realize there was a process where we did this. Is the public appropriately aware of this program?'"

So working on the assumption that if the councillors didn't know about it, there's a good chance the public didn't either, they decided to make some noise about it.

So, if this is news to you, and you have a property, residential or otherwise, that you're not going to be able to use for the purpose for which it is intended for at least three months, you may want to look into it.

And if you knew all about this already, well, you may want to have a word with your councillor about keeping up on the news.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Casey Brendon
Photo: B. Sutherland

Just before 1:30 on Monday morning, the 101-year-old Dufferin Bridge ceased to be. After alarming inspectors enough with its pendulous concrete to order an immediate closure in June, the bridge over the GO Transit railway line ended up proving a little more stalwart than city workers expected.

"A couple of things surprised us, given the age of the structure," says Michael d'Andrea, the city's executive director for engineering and construction services. "The concrete was much harder, and adhered to the girders far better than we could ever have envisioned, … and the physical connection between these very large steel beams and the girders were in much better shape than expected."

He made clear that this does not mean they tore the thing down when they didn't have to. "We were surprised by how strong the concrete was in some areas, but in other areas, it was pretty weak."

The result was 48 hours of round-the-clock destruction, using 12-hour shifts of 15-20 workers, and another 15-20 engineers, general contractors and GO and Metrolinx advisors. It took two cranes, seven Bobcats, nine jackhappmers and five trucks running continuously to haul away the 1,000 tonnes of concrete, 120 tonnes of asphalt, and 100-150 tonnes of steel. D'Andrea says more than 90 per cent of all that will be recycled.

Within the next week or 10 days, a temporary pedestrian bridge will be erected, and by early 2014 there will be two temporary vehicle bridges joining it, all of which will be replaced by permanent structures by 2016 and should – assuming we’re at least as good at our jobs as our great grandparents -- last till about 2117.

Writer: Bert Archer
Sources: Michael d’Andrea, Jodie Atkins