Design : Development News

The last motel in the city's core is gone.

The TraveLodge, the discount motel right in the heart of what has become the designiest part of the King West strip was demolished in December and January, its prominent sign's last message an ad for its used mattress sale. In its place, but not for several years, will be the Thompson Hotel chain's first attempt at residential living.

"It's basically going to be full-service luxury condominium services, with � la carte services provided by the hotel across the street," says Anthony Declari, the development director for Freed Development, the the company that's putting its stamp on the area, with several condo and hotel projects in the works within a several block radius. "It's what we call hotel-inspired."

The hotel across the street will be Canada's first Thompson Hotel at 550 Wellington, slated for completion later this year.

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Freed Corporation

The long-rumoured, long-delayed Festival Tower is finally up to its 39^th floor, close to its final height and slightly higher than its original planned 37 storeys, and is set for a fall occupancy.

The tower is part of the Reitman Square project, named for a $22-million donation from the family of Canadian movie producer and director Ivan Reitman, that also includes the Toronto International Film Festival's future headquarters, Bell Lightbox at the corner of King and John streets.

The project takes up an entire city block. Bell Lightbox has been at the centre of TIFF's $196-million fundraising campaign, of which 82 per cent had been raised by the end of 2009.

The condos, of which there are "five or six left," according to Heather Lloyd of development partner Daniels Corporation, have been selling for between $400,000 and over $2 million.

Restaurateurs Oliver & Bonacini have announced they will be occupying part of the ground-floor retail space.

The complex was designed by Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB Architects, in association with Kirkor Architects and Planners.

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Daniels Corporation

Demolition and excavation for the large underground parking lot has begun on the site of the future L Tower, architect Daniel Libeskind's next contribution to the city's cultural landscape.

The tower, at the southeast corner of Yonge and Front and now estimated to be costing $280 million, suffered a major setback late last year when federal and provincial funding shortfalls deprived the design of its planned $75-million heritage and arts complex at the building's base. An abbreviated version of this aspect of the plans will now house condo amenities like an exercise room and pool, along with a public plaza.

According to Sharon Florian of Fernbrook Homes, one of the developers, about 85 per cent of the building's 585 units have sold, including at least one of the penthouse suites, which John Bentley Mays has described as "examples of this artist-architect's handiwork at its most daring."

According to Florian, the project will reach the concrete-pouring stage by the summer.

The project also includes a $30-million refurbishment of architect Peter Dickinson's 1960 O'Keefe-cum-Hummingbird-cum-Sony Centre.

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Fernbrook Homes

If you've walked by the corner of Front and Church in the last week you will have noticed that the perpetual book blow-out shop on the southwest corner has finally disappeared, replaced by a hoarding from Vancouver-based Concert Properties.

From 51 to 61 Church, and from the book blow-out shop up to but not including the Christmas Market at 51 Front Street East will soon be The Berczy, a 13-storey terraced condo with retail on the bottom floor.

Designed by Young + Wright/IBI Group Architects, with interiors by the Chapman Design Group, the short tower is set to be finished by 2012, and will be incorporating the historic building that currently houses The Keg at 12 Church into its fa�ade. Previous Young + Wright/IBI Group buildings include One St. Thomas and the Sharp Centre of Art & Design. Chapman have worked on the famous Cotton House hotel on the island of Mustique in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the renovation of the residences at College Park.

According to Concert's Toronto marketing department, though prices have not been definitively set yet, they will likely start around $280,000 for the larger-than-average one-bedroom units, which will be just under 600 square feet (as a comparison, the smallest units in the L Tower a block west on Front will be under 500 square feet).

The Berczy is named for the park across the street, which in turn is named for William Berczy (1744-1813), an early Toronto painter and founder of Markham.

V. Tony Hauser, whose photography studio is at 55 Front Street East, will be relocating,

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Concert Properties

A $17-million project to densify a small section of the Annex just west of Spadina Road is being completed this week, after several rounds of controversy with the local residents' association. The project, led by 59 Project Management for owners Hanfrow Holdings G.P. Inc., saw the building of two rental buildings at 88 Spadina, with a total of 91 units, and 12 townhouse condos at the corner of Bernard and Walmer.

The project was designed by Quadrangle Architects.

The Annex Residents Association opposed the 88 Spadina project, mostly as the result of shadows the original design would have cast on the backyards of some Walmer Road homes. According to 59 Project Management's Philip Marsland, the design was altered to break the building into two to allow more light through to address the residents' concerns. "The Annex Residents Association was quite strong and vocal against it," Marsland says. "The developer and the architect did a very good job in accommodating the desires of the residents and we had a very open discourse throughout the entire process."

This week, the finishing touches were put on the townhouse condos, designed in a neo-Edwardian style and built on the former site of the original tower's parking lot, which has been expanded and put underground. The first residents are expected to move in at the end of the week.

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: 59 Project Management

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

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

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

 

One of the two next CityPlace projects to come online has just sent out notices to buyers to delay an original March occupancy to May and June.

According to postings on urbandb.com, buyers in Concord Adex's Panorama tower, the rounded, 28-storey, 385-unit condo building at 38 Dan Leckie Way, have just started receiving their occupancy notices and are expecting their pre-delivery inspection (or PDI) packages to arrive about now.

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.

The tallest towers at Yonge and Eglinton were born in controversy, as tall towers in well-loved neighbourhoods tend to be. But, as if to make it up to the community, Minto Midtown applied for and, just this month, received its LEED Gold certification. At 891 suites in two towers, the development is now the largest condominium to get LEED Gold.

"It's a landmark," says Andrew Pride, who heads up the 10-person Minto Green Team. "Its green certification is a testament to where condominium development is going in Canada."

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

Like the sturdy little former Catholic girls school that it is, Empire Communities' Schoolhouse weathered the recessionary storms and is almost ready for its new term.

Designed by E.I. Richmond and 3rd Uncle, with interiors by Bryon Patton and Associates, the five-storey, 19-suite condo building is set to lets its first owners in this month, with the majority of the suites (14 are still unsold), able to be finished and ready to move in to by mid-March.

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.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: urbandb.com

You'd be forgiven for not noticing the coolest new condo development in recent times just admitted its first new owners last month. The address is 155 Cumberland, just east of the Cumberland Four cinema, though people who live there can also get home through a very non-condo-like door at 130 Bloor Street West. If you want to see it, stand in front of Gucci or Herm�s (also at 130 Bloor) and look up, look way up.

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