Central Waterfront : Development News

The rest of Sherbourne Common opened this past weekend, including its most distinctive feature, the nation's first water feature that's also a water treatment plant.

The first phase of the new park, Sherbourne Common South, with its waterfront lawn and playground, opened last September. With the addition of the 0.5 hectare northern phase, the park rests on 1.47 hectares and cost a total of $30.6 million.

"It's such an innovative park," says Waterfront Toronto's interim manager of project communications Bruce Sudds. "If you get a chance, it's worth seeing at night."

The walkway over the water channel is equipped with motion sensors which alters the way the water sculpture by Jill Anholt, called Light Showers, is lit.

Ontario's Minister of Research and Innovation, Glen Murray, was at the ceremony.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Bruce Sudds

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Construction started last week on Underpass Park at the waterfront.

The 1.05 hectare space is being built between Cherry Street and Bayview under the Eastern and Richmond/Adelaide overpasses to designs by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg and The Planning Partnership.

The park's first phase, east of St. Lawrence Street, will be finished this year.

According to Waterfront Toronto, "The park will feature flexible community and recreational spaces, playful climbing play areas, and striking public art. It will also become a key link in the West Don Lands community, connecting the north and south parts of West Don Lands through the underpasses."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Waterfront Toronto

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Maple Leaf Square is getting its own LCBO in July.

The addition, which follows the opening of the Longo's grocery store, marks the area's transition from pure entertainment to a more residential and commercial hub.

"The concept with this store," says LCBO spokesman Chris Layton, "much like the store we opened in the Royal Bank Plaza earlier this year, is to provide convenient service in a rapidly growing community of Toronto that also attracts many visitors."

The 4,000 square foot store, which is being built next to the Real Sports Bar and Grill with its 199 HD TVs, including the continent's largest sports bar HD TV, will have 2,900 square feet of selling space with 1,400 products.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Chris Layton

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The dockwall at the Portland Slip next to the Canada Malting silos is the latest improvement to the award-winning Water's Edge Promenade currently under construction by Waterfront Toronto and its construction manager, Eastern Construction.

Last week, according to Waterfront Toronto's newsletter, crews have been "driving sheet steel pilings to provide structural support for the dockwall. This work requires crews to take columns of wood, steel or concrete and drive them into the ground along the length of the dockwall."

Waterfront Toronto expected this phase of the work to be done by this past week, after which, work on the steel framing will begin.

Once complete, the promenade will have granite pavestones in a red and grey maple leaf mosaic, like the promenade that currently connects Sugar Beach and Sherbourne Common.

The promenade is expected to open in the spring of 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Samantha Gileno

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People really want another Loblaw by the waterfront.

According to Councillor Adam Vaughan, in whose ward a new Loblaw's is in the process of being negotiated for an old warehouse at Bathurst and Lakeshore, the packed public meeting last Monday was vociferous in its support of the project, despite some Heritage Toronto concerns about the old art deco structure.

"Heritage would like to preserve the building," Vaughan says, "and they don't like it when the strategy to preserve it is to recreate it." According to Vaughan, Loblaw's plan is to take it mostly apart and put it back together again to get around certain problems, like a 14-foot grade, and the support columns for the Gardiner Expressway that are built right into the warehouse's superstructure.

Given the popular support for the project, Vaughan says that "they question then becomes, can planning staff live with it. And it doesn't look like they can."

The project is being designed by ARK, a division of the Markham- and Shanghai-based Petroff Partnership Architects.

About 150 to 200 people attended the meeting at the Harbourfront Community Centre's medium assembly room. Vaughan estimates they had to turn away another 150 for lack of space.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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The newest Waterfront Toronto park is moving closer to completion this week as granite curbstones are installed by city crews and the last few benches are put in place.

Work on the Sherbourne Common, which crept 20 metres into Lower Sherbourne last year, has closed northbound traffic on the street. The lanes will remain closed until the street is aligned with the new Dockside Drive being built to serve George Brown College's East Bayfront campus

Toronto Star architecture columnist Christopher Hume has called the $30-million park "one of a new breed of hybrid urban projects that have the potential to lead us into the future."

Sherbourne Common opened to the public on Sept. 24 last year, and will have its official opening when the final maples are planted this spring. The Sherbourne Common skating rink opened on Jan. 31.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Samantha Giileno

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The cold weather hasn't stopped work on the fireplace and pavillion in Don River Park, two of the standout features of the 18-acre, $26-million park.

"Some of it they can tent and tarp," says Waterfront Toronto spokeswoman Tari Stork, "some of it they can't." Other work, that involves excavation, is on hold until the ground thaws.

The fireplace is reportedly 75 per cent finished, and work on the pavilion is halfway done.

There is no set date for the completion of the two amenities, but the park is expected to be completed in the spring of 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source; Tari Stork

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Construction is to begin in the next couple of weeks on the underground parking lot between York and Queens quays.

The much-delayed schedule was confirmed at the first meeting of the Construction Liaison Committee for what's being called the York Quay "revitalization" at the beginning of January. The committee was struck to deal with community questions regarding the project, scheduled to be finished by the summer of 2012.

The first step in construction, according to builder Ellis Don's project manager Anthony Bisanti, will be the concrete caissons being dug in to provide a structural framework for the lot. The work will go on weekdays from 7am to 7pm until Victoria Day, and will stop an hour earlier from Victoria Day to next Thanksgiving. When Saturday work is necessary, it will run between 9am and 6pm.

The especially noisy caisson phase of the work is expected to be finished before the spring.

The project is replacing 212 surface parking spots on a 1.4-hectare site with 302 underground spots.

The next meeting of the liaison committee has been scheduled for two weeks after construction commences.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Samantha Gileno

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Work has started on the second office tower slated for the block of land between York and Simcoe fronting on Bremner.

The tower, currently named Bremner Tower, is slated for occupancy in 24 months, and will join the nearly completed PwC Tower and the future 45-storey Delta Hotel to form part of what's being called Southcore Financial Centre.

The project is owned by the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation and developed by GWL Realty Advisors. The two office towers, totalling 1.4 million square feet of office space, were designed by KPMB. The Bremner tower, the larger of the two, will offer 700,000 square feet on 30 floors.

According to Mervin McCoubrey, senior vice president of development for GWL's Eastern Canadian division, all three buildings are being built with the environment very much in mind.

"We're building to LEED Gold standards," he says as he leads a tour around the unfinished interior of the PwC Tower, but adds that whether they get certification or not, their concerns and efforts are focused on that level of sustainability. The buildings will have roof water collection, which will be used both for toilets and to water the extensive wooded areas being built as third-floor terraces on all three buildings. Light sensors in the building will alter the artificial light levels based on existing natural light, and they'll be making extensive use of Enwave's deep lake water cooling, doing their intake at night, so they can also make use the energy they use in the process at off-peak hours.

There will also be more than 130 interior bike parking spots in each of the two office towers, and the whole complex is connected directly to both the TTC and GO Transit.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mervin McCoubrey

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The ground was broken this past Friday on the city's newest hotel, a hotel Canada's largest chain, Delta, hopes will redefine the brand.

"It will have no exterior walls," says Delta president and CEO Hank Stackhouse, "it'll all be glass." He says the rooms will all be oversized as well, with most being over 400 square feet. "It will also be highly steeped in technology," he says, saying it will have WiFi "top to bottom," though as for the rest of the technological amenities for guests, "as sure as we're standing here today, technology will be different by 2014," he says, of the projected opening date, so he's loath to go into particulars.

The building will be built to high environmental standards, however, with systems for heat recovery ventilation, low-flow water fixtures, a green roof and an "urban forest" of full-grown deciduous trees on about 10,000 square feet of terrace on the third floor.

The building, built on land once owned by Fairmont, sold to BCIMC (British Columbia Investment Management Corporation) and now managed by GWL Realty Advisors, will be 45 storeys high, with 566 rooms, including 24 extended-stay suites with full kitchens.

The building was designed by Toronto's Page and Steele/IBI Group; the interiors will be by Champalimaud Design in New York.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Hank Stackhouse

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Work on the foundation for the first building of the new George Brown campus on the waterfront is nearing completion. The 330,000 square foot, 8-storey building with underground parking on the 0.83-hectare site is expected to cost a total of $175 million.

What's currently known as Building A, the larger of two buildings that will house the campus's four health sciences schools, is expected to be able to accommodate its first students in the fall of 2012. It was designed by Stantec and KPMB, and construction is being managed by EllisDon.

"There were many practical reasons for proceeding with the waterfront location," says Lorie Shekter-Wolfson, dean and assistant vice-president for the Waterfront Campus development, "namely the close proximity to our existing St. James campus -- but the fact that Waterfront Toronto was looking for a post-secondary institution to help revitalize the waterfront made our involvement a natural fit."

Once complete, the new campus will be able to accommodate about 4,000 students in its dental, nursing, health management, continuing education and "health and wellness" schools.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Lorie Shekter-Wolfson


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With the first tower complete, the second is slated for spring occupancy and now the townhouse portion of the West Harbour City development in City Place are almost done.

The first two of the 9 townhouses, which range from 1,748 to 2,253 square feet and cost between $645,990 and $798,990, are completely done, inside and out, and the last 7 are having their interiors finished and kitchens installed.

According to Nestor Repetski, speaking for the Winick Realty Corp., which is selling the Plazacorp properties, "If you go to Vancouver, there's a lot of high-rises where the high-rise component is fronting onto the main street and then there's a low-rise, like a town home component, fronting onto a side street or a backstreet, which is what we've done here. There's an L-shaped tower that fronts onto the main thoroughfares, and then the town homes complete the square."

The rest of the town houses will be finished by the end of the month.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nestor Repetski

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Infrastructure Ontario and Waterfront Toronto has announced that a consortium led by HOK architects has been awarded the planning, design and compliance contract for the athletes village to be built in the West Don Lands to host the Pan American Games in 2015.

Mark Guslits, HOK's senior project director, describes the job as providing "detailed documents that describe all the elements of the village, both the overlay, which relates to the PanAmerican Games portion of it, as well as the legacy, which is what will remain once the games are over."

The plan is to create accommodations and facilities for the 8,000 athletes expected for the July, 2015 games, and to build it all to a LEED Gold environmental standard. Though there will be some temporary buildings, including welcome centres and meal halls, most of what's built will be converted into a commercial and residential community once the games are over, including both affordable and market-value homes.

The consortium includes Quadrangle, which will concern itself primarily with the larger buildings on the site, Dutoit Allsopp Hillier, which will focus on the community-related aspects of the project, and Montgomery Sisam, whose experience with Infrastructure Ontario projects will, according to Guslits, allow them to be "a guiding influence related to generating the documents in the fashion in which IO expects them."

HOK will take on the sustainability aspects of the village.

Guslits expected the request for qualifications (RFQ) to go out to the developer and builder community in the next couple of weeks, and figures the project as a whole will be done by the end of 2014.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mark Guslits


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Many large buildings have several architectural firms credited with its design, but rarely are their separate contributions as obvious as in the first building to be completed on the new eastern waterfront.

Headquarters for Corus Entertainment, the building at the base of Lower Jarvis Street next to Sugar Beach was designed by Toronto firms  Diamond and Schmitt and Quadrangle Architects and is owned by Build Toronto.

"You do want a harmony between the two," says Quadrangle principal Brian Curtner. "Our goals and objectives were different. They were building an office building for the city and we were trying to create a unique branding location for an innovative broadcast company."

The building's exterior design, which according to Curtner was originally handled by Eberhard Zeidler's firm, fell to Diamond & Schmitt when the building was being pitched to Global TV, according to Curtner. The designs were originally presented to TEDCO, now known as the Toronto Port Lands Company, which handles the leasing and managing of properties for the city.

Curtner says that though there were a couple of changes to the exterior, including an articulation on the facade and an 8th-floor "presentation theatre" and lounge, the designs were developed and executed separately. The result is a fairly ordinary black shell wrapped around a surprising interior of bends and curves, salvaged hemlock wood, transparencies and flow.

As the Waterfront grows -- a new George Brown campus is under construction next door to Corus -- Curtner expects their project to play a definitive role in the new neighbourhood.

"Will Corus be an integral part of the revised east Waterfront? Of course," he says. "They're young and hip and they're going to start demanding the type of life that they don't have there."

Now that the CityTV building is mostly silent, Speakers Corner shuttered and little activity behind its once famous Queen Street windows, the new Corus building may eventually take up its street-involved cultural mantel.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Brian Curtner

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A site-specific sculpture installed on a hill in High Park in the Summer of Love is getting a different specific site, and a new lease on life, thanks to the city's cultural office, art consultant Karen Mills and her employer, developer Concord Adex.

The 1967 sculpture, called "Flower Power," was Mark di Suvero's first large-scale modernist piece in a career that has since been defined by them.

Over the years, the sculpture, made of steel I beams, deteriorated and was partially dismantled, though kept on display in the park close to a companion piece, di Suvero's "No Shoes."  According to Gabriel Leung, director of development for Concord Adex, he and Mills -- who is largely responsible for the presence of Douglas Coupland's art in City Place and elsewhere -- at first had trouble negotiating with the artist. "He wasn't very happy with the way his sculpture was delapidating in High Park," Leung says.

But they were eventually able to come to terms, and in 2008, the city and the developer made an arrangement that would see the large sculpture sent back to its creator's Long Island studio for restoration, and then placed alongside Linear Park in Concord Adex's City Place development in the old railway lands at a cost of $350,000 to the city. The developer donated the time of its landscape architect and engineer to prepare the new site. Flower Power was installed last week.

An officer with the city's cultural office, who asked that she not be quoted, said the site was a better location for the piece, allowing it to be more closely watched and better cared for.

No Shoes will also be restored and re-placed, though the city is not sure when or where yet.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: City of Toronto Culture

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