Central Waterfront : Development News

Global consultancy KPMG has named Waterfront Toronto one of the world's best infrastructure projects.

In its report, Infrastructure 100: World Cities Edition, KPMG includes the massive project—the biggest urban renewal project in North America—alongside Abu Dhabi 2030, Rio's Olympic Park and Manhattan's World Trade Center redevelopment.

"The Toronto Waterfront was selected because it is a truly transformative project that highlights how even highly developed cities can evolve their infrastructure," KPMG said through one of its PR operatives, Cynthia Innes.

Waterfront Toronto is redeveloping 800 hectares of land into a series of neighbourhoods that will ultimately include 40,000 new homes, a similar number of local jobs, new transit and 300 hectares of parks.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source; Cynthia Innes, Edelman Canada

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].

The first stage of what will be a comprehensive reconstruction of the Queen's Quay portion of the waterfront is beginning, and Waterfront Toronto is holding a public information session this week to make sure everything knows what's happening, and when.

In brief, the work will be done in three phases. Phase One will be infrastructural, upgrading utilities, performing maintenance work on the drainage system and re-laying streetcar tracks. As a result, streetcar service will be suspended for much of the year, replaced by buses. This phase will last until next summer.

The second phase will start next summer, when an extra lane will be added to Queen's Quay on the north side of the street. Work will also be done on the north sidewalk.

Phase three, which will begin in early 2014 and end in late 2014, will concentrate on the south side of the street, completing the promenade and improving Martin Goodman Trail.

According to Waterfront Toronto spokeswoman Samantha Gileno, the budget for the entire process is $110 million.

Each stage of work, Gileno says, will only shut down that section of the roadway, which will then re-open as soon as the next stage's work begins.

The June 6 meeting is in the Brigantine Room at York Quay from 7pm to 9pm.

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].

The Canary District is underway, and before you get riled about this being yet one more derivative place name, lionizing a foreign capital instead of affirming our own city, take heart that this particular Canary has nothing to do with the London wharf.

This new 20-acre neighbourhood, the first phase of which will be completed for the Pan Am Games in 2015, and that will ultimately include 2,300 residential units, 60,000 square feet of retail with its own new streetcar spur, is named for that little abandoned diner, The Canary on Cherry.

"We were playing around with a lot of different names internally," says Jason Lester, president of Dundee REIT. "It was where weary truck drivers what would come out of downtown Toronto, taking dirt from the [construction of] the financial core to to the Leslie Spit, this is where they'd stop for their morning coffee and breakfast. When the Distillery District became Hollywood North for about 12 years, it was filmmakers" who hung out there, he says, adding that ultimately it was his idea to name the huge development after the little diner.  

The renewed interest in the area has meant a renewed interest in the diner itself. They'll be fixing up the diner's exterior in the lead-up to the games, and Lester figures ultimately Waterfront Toronto will acquire it and give it a new purpose.

Phase II of the development will be marketed in 2014-15 and depending on sales, may begin construction as early as 2016, with potential occupancy by 2018.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jason Lester

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].

The final meeting in the process meant to accelerate the development of the Port Lands is taking place on May 24.

The process was begun when the Mayor Rob Ford's administration decided Toronto's waterfront development was going too slowly, and also in response to their counterplan to build a Ferris wheel.

"Up to this point, we've had two rounds of public consultation where we've engaged the public initially to talk about goals and initiatives," says Waterfront Toronto's Michelle Noble. "This meeting is to present the key findings about where we're at currently. We want public input and we're in the final stages of developing a joint report with the City of Toronto and the Toronto Region Conservation Authority."

After this meeting, a report will go to the city's executive committee in June, who will decide whether to forward it for full council and Ford consideration in July.

The May 24 public meeting will take place between 6:30pm and 9:30pm in the North Building of Metro Toronto Convention Centre (255 Front Street West) in room 105. There will also be a webcast, with participation open to all who log in.

For more information, you can visit the site.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Michelle Noble

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].

Work is about to begin on Portland Slip, part of what will shortly become a system of promenades that will allow people to walk the entire waterfront.

"The promenade itself will look very similar to the Water's Edge Promenade at Sherbourne Common," says JD Reeves, a project manager with Waterfront Toronto. "This is one more piece in the master plan that will eventually have a continuous promenade from the airport area to the east through East Bayfront."

The bits of the system are being constructed in a fashion Reeves describes as opportunistic—Portland Slip is going ahead now because the city was redoing the dock wall beside the malting silos. So though Portland Slip doesn't hook up with Water's Edge yet, it does open up the promenade system to include Ireland Park, a previously orphaned space that Waterfront Toronto is now confident will get a lot more foot traffic.

Work should be finished by fall, with tree planting to commence next spring.

Writer: Bert Archer
Sources: JD Reeves, Simon Karam

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].

Waterfront Toronto has won a national award for excellence in urban sustainability.

The award was handed out last month by the Vancouver-based GLOBE Foundation, which is described on its website as a "not-for-profit private business foundation... established… to carry forward our mandate to promote the business case for sustainable development." It won the award over contenders such as the University of British Columbia Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability and the City of Vancouver.

"What set Waterfront Toronto aside and earned it the GLOBE Award for Excellence in Urban Sustainability was the framework they established back in 2005 and updated in 2011," says Carine Vindeirinho, awards program co-ordinator for the Global Opportunities in Business and the Environment (GLOBE) Foundation. "Their Minimum Green Building Requirements guidelines, proprietary Carbon Modeling Tool and successful stakeholder consultation were some of the noteworthy elements of their approach. The judges also commended Waterfront Toronto's commitment to deliver sustainable, mixed-use communities integrated with parks and open spaces with a focus to enhance the natural environment, generate economic benefits and produce social-cultural gains in a triple bottom line approach."

The award was given jointly to Waterfront Toronto and Halsall Engineering.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Carine Vindeirinho

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 the most innovative pieces of landscaping and public space creation in the city has entered its second phase.

Underpass Park—one hopes the name sticks—is a 1.05-hectare site in the West Don Lands. It's a bit of land that, in most cities, including Toronto, would usually barely be considered land at all, placed as it is under and around the Eastern Avenue, Richmond Street and Adelaide Street overpasses that link the central to eastern parts of the lower city.

But thanks to Waterfront Toronto, and a team including Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, The Planning Partnership and artist Paul Raff, this space has all the potential to become a definitive urban space that can be repeated in derelict places throughout the world's cities. (Think Montreal; think Los Angeles.)

Work on the portion of the site east of St. Lawrence Street and River Street has been completed, and work on the western bit, nearest Eastern Avenue, is commencing.

Waterfront Toronto estimates the work will be completed by the end of the year.

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].

The CanPar building, formerly known as Marine Terminal 29, is nearly gone, the only thing keeping its final remains from being swept away is a transformer that Toronto Hydro's being slow to decommission.

"We started hazardous waste removal in January," says Mark Potter, construction manager for Hines, which is overseeing the demolition and redevelopment of the Waterfront site. "There was a little bit of asbestos."

He figures it should all be over by mid-March.

In addition to the terminal, the site also included a small shelter used by members of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club while waiting to be picked up by the tender.

The 13-acre site is part of the developing East Bayfront, south of Queens Quay between Sherbourne Common and Parliament.

According to Waterfront Toronto, 80 per cent of the building materials from the demolition are being taken to a sorting and recycling facility.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mark Potter

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].

Work has begun on the athletes village for the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games, a development that will add 1,040 residential units to the Waterfront.

Dundee Kilmer are the developers who signed the $514-million fixed-price contract with the province to develop the site.

The architects are KPMB, Architects Alliance, Doaust LeStage, TEN Arquitectos and MacLennan Jaunkains Miller. Ellis DonLedcor PAAV Inc. are the builders.

In addition to the residences, the project will add a new streetcar line along Cherry Street, an 82,000-square-foot YMCA and a student residence for the new Waterfront campus of George Brown College (the college's first residence).

Seven hundred and eighty-seven of the residential units will ultimately be designated market value, while the remaining 253 will be low-cost rentals.

The goal is to get the entire project certified LEED Gold.

Those involved are betting the project will be completed before July 10, 2015, when the Pan American Games begin. The Parapan American Games run August 7-14.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Tari Stork

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].

Adam Vaughan held what he's calling a "telephone town hall" at the end of last year, with results revealing the development priorities for one of the city's most populous wards.

Questions were framed in terms of the current budget negotiations. Responses indicate that 34 per cent of residents consider public transit to be their top priority, followed by 26 per cent who list "children, libraries, recreation, nutrition and childcare," ahead of the 15 per cent who said affordable housing was the most important thing to maintain and cultivate.

People in this densely populated ward also figured the best way to pay for all of this was by tapping drivers. About 48 per cent of them suggested the city bring back the vehicle registration tax; 32 per cent were in favour of road tolls.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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].

Nominations opened this week for the 2012 Green Toronto Awards, though the most interesting category from the 2011 edition has been dropped.

Last year, the awards expanded to include a green homes category, aimed at individuals who had done something remarkable to or with their own homes.

"It wasn't our strongest category," says Jessica Chow, co-ordinator for the city-sponsored awards. "We don’t know why. We noticed a lot of them were, 'Oh, I recycle in my home.' It wasn't really what we were after."

So this year, it's been folded into the more general green design category, where individual homes will now compete with eco clothing, green roofs and other design innovations.

Nominations can be submitted here until midnight on Feb. 6. Winners will be announced in March.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jessica Chow

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].

The Fords want Waterfront development to speed up, and Waterfront Toronto is trying to figure out how.

On Monday, Waterfront CEO John Campbell led a public consultation in the form of a series of round table discussions on what's being called the Port Lands Acceleration Initiative.

The meeting "is the kick-off for an extensive public consultation effort," states a Waterfront news release. "Our goal is to ensure a transparent process, engage the widest possible audience and provide ample opportunities for people to be involved."

Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, councillor Doug Ford, have wanted things to move faster on the waterfront. Since the mandate for acceleration passed a vote in council on Sept. 21, Waterfront's been working with the city, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and other bodies to figure out the best course of action. Monday's consultation was the first step towards getting the public in on it.

In January, applications will be accepted for membership in the ongoing Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which will have a total of six meetings on the subject, in tandem with two more public consultations.

Currently set to take 25 years to complete, Toronto's "new blue edge," as the project has been tagged, is expected to create about 40,000 new residences and 40,000 new jobs. Waterfront Toronto was established as Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation in November 2001.

Writer: Bert Archer

Source: Waterfront Toronto

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].

According to The Atlantic magazine, Sherbourne Common is one of the best new parks in the world.

The new Waterfront Toronto park, completed this year, was listed in a recent posting on the Americans magazine's Atlantic Cities site.

According to the compiler of the list, Mark Byrnes, "[T]his former industrial site integrates a neighborhood storm-water treatment facility into its design perfectly."

The park has also just won the 2011 Design Exchange's Gold Award for Landscape Architecture.

The park was designed by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg, The Planning Partnership, Teeple Architects and Jill Anholt.

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].

The walls are going up at the new George Brown campus-with-a-view.

Senior project manager Nerys Rau says the concrete work on the Waterfront campus, next to Corus Quay and Sugar Beach, was finished in July. The structural steel is all up, and the curtain wall is now filling in.

"We’re complete to the second floor on the east side and probably even higher on the west side," she says.

The 320,000-square-foot, $175-million single-building project is set to be substantially completed by July 2012, and to open for students in September.

The parking garage, which is 75 per cent funded and owned by Waterfront Toronto, is mostly complete and is being painted.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nerys Rau

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].

If you think Toronto's been getting a little uppity recently, with all its tall, tall buildings, you may want to stop by Too Tall, a new exhibit that runs through December in the Architecture Gallery at York Quay.

With exhibits from three firms (RAW Design, KPMB, Architects Alliance) and artist Douglas Walker, Too Tall is looking to explain the various issues surrounding building up.

According to RAW's Richard Witt, the show is meant to answer questions like, "How tall should they be? What's the reason for them to be tall? Every time a new building goes up, people are concerned. But there's more to it that just how tall the building is next to it."

RAW's own tallest building in the works is an as-yet unannounced 60-storey tower in Toronto. In recent years, the limits of "how high can you go" have been challenged by various Gulf state projects, like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the planned Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. With the global population about to hit seven billion, and urban migration increasing daily, Witt says building skywards is becoming an increasingly attractive, and practical, option.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Richard Witt

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].