Financial District : Development News

The fifth in the Toronto City Summit Alliance's Greening Our Workplaces series of talks between major landlords and their major tenants in downtown office towers took place in November between the Royal Bank of Canada and Oxford Properties.

Issues discussed included tips about excess lighting, efficient lighting, computer power management settings, unplugging devices when they're not in use and clearing air vents of obstructions.

Though these are all minor issues and minor efforts that are often placed under the heading of greenwashing, the fact the meeting took place at all, and that it took place in Canada's first LEED EB Gold certified bank tower, is an indication that the nation's corporate community is paying attention, if only to save a little money.

"We are interested in working with all our tenants to help them meet their green goals and collectively reduce the environmental footprint of RBC Plaza," said Andrew McAllan, Oxford's senior vice president and managing director for real estate, in a press release (no one was available for interviews). "We look forward to working with more companies in our building to help them reduce wasted energy and save money."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Rebecca Geller

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Tomorrow, on the second day of Construct Canada, the country's biggest building trade and professional show, Cliff Korman will lead a discussion on the negotiating skills needed to get a project built in as close to the way it was intended as possible.

According to Korman, who put the "kor" in Kirkor Architects, "It's an idea I've been working on for a little while, something called the 'collaborative planning process.'" He says about 90 per cent of the work he does in Toronto involves intensifications or re-zoning, and as a result has to wend its way through a labyrinth of panels, committees, interest groups and regulations.

"It's become a very, very complex group of problems," he says. "In the municipal planning process, we have planners, ratepayers, councillors, design review panels, neighbourhood design charettes; you don't just have a client anymore, you have a huge collaborative effort."

We've got plenty of design and development talent in the city, he says; all we need is a little more negotiating know-how to convey the value of projects to a wide variety of stakeholders and decision-makers.

Korman's panel will include Moiz Behar of M. Behar Planning & Design, Niall Haggert, executive vice president of Daniels Corporation, and Stephen Upton, vice president of development planning at Tridel.

Construct Canada, which this year offers 1,050 exhibits, and is being held at the same time and next to the Home Builder and Renovator Expo, Concrete Canada and Design Trends, takes place Dec. 1-3 in the South Building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Cliff Korman

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].

Booze-buying commuters will have to change their shopping habits as of Nov. 25, when the hugely popular Union Station LCBO moves to the underground portion of the Royal Bank Plaza, one of the first signs of the coming massive renovation at the station.

The new store will be bigger, offering about 2,700 square feet of shopping space, as opposed to the old one's 1,800.

"It's a good location, because it's very close to the subway," says LCBO spokesman Chris Layton. "Something like 195,000 people pass by each week."

The old store, which Layton says has been around and mostly unchanged since the 1970s, will close for good at the end of the business day on Nov 24.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Chris Layton

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].

The Toronto City Summit Alliance writes, in a recent press release, of Telus' new $250-million, 30-storey LEED Gold headquarters at 25 York Street, that "While the building is built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certification, the building's environmental performance depends in part on tenants' and their employees' use of the space."

There's been a lot of talk to building standards, especially LEED, in the last several years as the development industry and Toronto at large become more aware of the potential for technological advances to claw back our impact on the environment.

But as this press release pointed out last week, the greenest-built building can still be wasteful if the people who use it are.

Which is why the TCSA-sponsored series of landlord-tenant talks in some of the largest buildings in the city are so potentially useful. This one, hosted last Thursday by Telus and the tower's builder, Menkes, gathered the building's other tenants to discuss the built-in green features, and share strategies for making the most of them.

Strategies discussed included car pooling to work to use the allocated car pooling spots and biking to work to use the in house showers and bike storage facilities

This was the fourth such meeting in the awkwardly named Greening Greater Toronto's 'Greening Our Workplaces' Tenant-Landlord Collaboration Series.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Rebecca Geller

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].

The Peace Park, long the centre of Nathan Philips Square and home to its own eternal flame representing the city's commitment to world peace, is being moved to the west side of the square as part of the redesign of the whole square.

"The new Peace Garden is going to be able to accommodate larger crowds," says Sheila Glazer, manager of strategic policy and projects for the energy and strategic initiatives section of the city's facilities management division. "But at the same time, it will be a more intimate setting for smaller groups than it is in the middle."

She says that whenever there were big events in the square, the Peace Gardens tended to not only be hived off, but it was generally where any necessary generators were placed. "Not exactly a tranquil, peaceful setting," she says.

The idea to remove the gardens from its symbolically central position was controversial when the square's new design, the result of a design competition, was debated by council, according to Glazer, but it passed what Glazer described as an "ultimately necessary" part of the $46.8-million redesign project.

The relocation has begun, with an expected 2011 re-opening, and a further re-commemoration in 2012 when the whole square is completed.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Sheila Glazer

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].

It's been 100 years since Viljo Revell was born, and 45 years this past Monday since his Canadian masterpiece, our City Hall, was opened, and the City Archives and the Toronto Society of Architects is putting on a series of exhibits and events to mark the occasion.

"City Hall had not just a huge impact on Toronto, but internationally," says Margo Welch, executive director of the Toronto Society of Architects, of the design that has ensured this almost half-century-old building is still referred to by most as New City Hall. "The opening of City Hall was really comparable to when the Guggenheim museum opened in Bilbao, it was just such an unusual building, so extraordinary, so specific. It kind of gave permission to local architects, to North American architects, to think more broadly, more interestingly."

The festivities began on Monday, with David Crombie, Frank Gehry and Lisa Rochon speaking in the council chamber. They'll wind up with a symposium, organized by Rochon, on the impact of Finnish architecture. In between, there's an exhibition in the rotunda featuring pictures of other of Revell's buildings, and artifacts from the original and controversial competition which Revell ended up winning.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Margo Welch


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GWL Realty Advisors, which manages Commerce Court, took the opportunity provided by a meeting convened by primary tenant, law firm Stikeman Elliott, to introduce its new submetering program, which will allow each tenant to monitor their own energy use.

The meeting, held late last month under the auspices of the Toronto City Summit's Greening Greater Toronto's "Greening Our Workplaces" Tenant Series, was meant to provide a forum for tenants and their landlord to discuss various green initiatives and proposals.

"We're actually in the installation process now," says Paul Hollins, director of technical services with GWLRA, who's in charge of the 1,985,480 square foot complex, "and we've hopefully whetted their appetites, and by November, when we've completed the system, they can set some targets for themselves."

"Tenants will be able to use the metering system to validate whether automation features in the building, such as lighting controls, plug loads like computers, are working to their advantage," Hollins says. "It will be able to tell us if all the computers are on all night, or if the lights are on over the weekend."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paul Hollins

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].

A meeting to bring major tenants and major landlords together in the city's core to discuss green initiatives will take place May 27 in Commerce Court.

Organized by the law firm of Stikeman Elliott, the meeting will bring together other large-scale tenants of the building to meet with landlord GWL Realty Advisors.

The second of five such meetings planned, it is part of the Greening Our Workplaces Tenant Series, an initiative of Greening Greater Toronto, which is itself under the auspices of the Toronto City Summit Alliance.

"It's tenants who are driving these meetings," says Linda Weichel, managing director of Greening Greater Toronto. "It's really about understanding the obstacles for commercial buildings to reduce their energy use."

Weichel says that one of the main benefits of such meetings is the opportunity they provide for some tenants to share data relating to programs they may already have tried out themselves that may end up working for their neighbours.

"There are capital constraints where people only have so much money to spend," she says, "and they need to know the money they will be committing is actually going to make a difference, and is going to work for them."

The first meeting was held between BMO and their landlord at First Canadian Place, Brookfield Properties. The next three have not yet been announced.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Linda Weichel

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].

Colliers International has put together a deal for Good Life Fitness to establish a flagship gym for its 275-location national chain at 137 Yonge.

It will occupy the old Revolution Fitness space on the ground and basement floors of the building, giving them a total of 45,000 square feet.

The deal was signed last week and may ultimately involve shuttering several of the Good Life Fitness locations in the immediate area. The fates of 2 Queen East, 250 Yonge, 100 Yonge and 36 Toronto Street are up in the air.

"It's taken four years to find something," Bristow says, adding that the entire top floor of The Bay on Queen Street had been an earlier option. He estimates the renovation will cost Good Life, who have signed a 20-year lease, somewhere in the range of $3.5-$4-million.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Tim Bristow

Correction: There are 275 Good Life Fitness locations in Canada. Yonge Street was given incorrect information, which has now been corrected in the text. Also, with regard to any of the several locations within less than a kilometre of the new flagship location closing, according to Good Life spokeswoman Krista Maling, "We have no plans to make any changes to any clubs in downtown Toronto as of today." She was unable to make assurances about the immediate future. The original text has been changed to reflect this new information.

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].

The Toronto City Summit Alliance's commercial building energy initiative, the tenant segment of Greening Our Workplaces, part of the larger Greening Greater Toronto, will kick off on March 26, a little more than 24 hours before Earth Hour, with a meeting between Brookfield Asset Management and its main tenants at First Canadian Place, including the Bank of Montreal and Bay Street law firm Gowlings.

"Brookfield is committed to the sustainability of its Toronto properties and has registered all of its buildings with the LEED EB:OM program," says Stefan Dembinski, Brookfield's senior vice president of asset management for eastern Canada. "We understand that many of our tenants are seeking to reduce their environmental impact and as a result we are looking to partner with them to achieve our mutually beneficial sustainability goals."

According to the TCSA, who will be presenting the business case for commercial greening at the meeting, the initiative includes retrofitting, reducing carbon emissions, and ensuring that the whole thing is driven by both landlord and tenant.

According to TCSA, commercial buildings account for more than 30 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions in the GTA, consume 37 per cent of the city's electricity and 17 per cent of its natural gas. They suggest that one of the major barriers to improving commercial building efficiency is a lack of communication between landlords and tenants.

The March 26 meeting will be the first of five such meetings between major commercial landlords and their Toronto tenants.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Stefan Dembinski,Brookfield; TCSA

Ryerson University announced last week that they'd signed on Toronto's Zeidler Partnership Architects and Sn�hetta of Oslo to design their new $45-million Student Learning Centre, which will fill the sad hole left by their recent demolition of the old World of Posters, Future Shop and, of course, Sam the Record Man at the corner of Yonge and Gould.

"I think it's going to be a compilation of everything," says Ryerson spokeswoman Heather Kearney, of the design-in-progress and the presentation the two firms gave of their previous work on libraries and campuses around the world that won them the commission. Zeidler is most famously responsible for Ontario Place (1967-71), the Eaton Centre (1974-81) and the Queens Quay Terminal refurbishment (1979-83), and Sn�hetta made their reputation with the Alexandria Library (1989-2001).

Kearney estimates there will be a year of design work on the 160,000 square foot, 10-storey building, which will include a library, so construction is not expected to begin until sometime in 2011, with a 2013 completion date set.

The $45 million is all provincial funding though with no design, there's no word yet on whether that's going to be the entire budget. "I assume they're going to work within that budget,' Kearney says, "but whether it's realistic or not I don't know."

 

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Ryerson University

The latest addition to the city's skyline is the RBC Centre at Wellington and Simcoe. You'll recognize it by its distinctive blue stripe running the length of its 43 floors. Designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects and developed by Cadillac Fairview, the tower is remarkable for two things: it's one of three new office buildings (along with Menkes' Telus tower and Brookfield's Bay-Adelaide building) that have added the first significant amount of office space downtown (3 million square feet in total, of which 1.2 million is in RBC Centre) in 17 years. The second is that it's Canada's first office tower to be built to LEED Gold NC standard.

That NC stands for "new construction," which means that though it's measured on how well the landlord's role in the building measures up to LEED's criteria, it also involves a buy-in from future tenants to build and renovate to these same standards, "so it becomes a co-operative and joint effort between landlord and tenant," says Cadillac Fairview's senior vice-president of office development, Wayne Barwise, "to keep the standards of the building and both benefit from the reduced energy costs."

Built with a budget of about $420 million, Barwise lists several of the building's LEED-focused features, including operable windows on the first 10 floors, rain capture and grey-water recycling for the first six floors, and an automated building management system that uses shades and a "light shelf" to respond to changes in the light outside, including both the passage of the sun and glare from nearby buildings.

Though Barwise doesn't anticipate the vacancy rates in Toronto will demand much new commercial construction on this scale for several years, Cadillac Fairview itself, he says, were influenced somewhat by RBC's "very forward-thinking" and specific sustainability objectives, will now be changing the way it does business. "Our standard going forward," he says, "will be to build to a minimum standard of LEED Gold. We believe this is the way of the future."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Cadillac-Fairview