Church & Wellesley - Yorkville - Annex : Development News

The one-tower, two-loft condo development on Sherbourne Street just north of Wellesley is nearing completion.

Located at 500 Sherbourne, the tower, developed by Times Group Corp., is finished, 85 per cent sold and taking occupants, according to marketing director Elmar Busch, who describes his company, which has been active in Toronto for about 25 years, as "the biggest developer between Bayview and 400 on Highway 7."

One of the two loft buildings is completed, which shares the podium with the tower, and the other, on an adjacent lot, is within weeks of being done. Both of these, according to Busch, are about 70 per cent sold.

Excavation on the site, which is just south of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic church and west of the towers of St. Jamestown, began in August of 2007.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Elmar Busch

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The redevelopment of Dupont Street continues.

A notice of application sign went up recently on the fence surrounding 555 Dupont, reflecting an application by Sorenson Gravely Lowes Planning Associates Inc. last year to rezone the site between Manning and Palmerston. The site is the current home of Leal Rentals. The application is to allow the existing building to be transformed into a general retail building, something that in the plan bears some resemblance to a strip mall.

The site's current zoning is R2 Z1 which, according to the city, "permits a variety of residential and community services, but not the list of retail and restaurant uses proposed by the applicant."

There was a previous application, in 2006, reportedly by IDA, to rezone the site to allow a drugstore to go in, according to a city staff report. It was withdrawn after the city postponed its decision.

"We'll be scheduling a community meeting soon," says Barry Brooks, the senior planner in charge of the file. He figures it will probably be held in March.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Barry Brooks

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Toronto's flagship Whole Foods is getting a massive expansion.

The Yorkville store, which already dominates the Hazelton Lanes shopping mall it's in, will go from 40,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet, and encompass a second atrium.

According to Peter Hilge, Whole Foods' Metro store team leader, the deal has been signed for Whole Foods to take over the space directly behind its current store, and work is expected to start in March, and finish no later than September 26, which is the end of the fiscal year for the Austin-based grocery store chain.

 "The store's nine years old, and it's doing very well, but it's time to put a new dress on the lady," Hilge says. "So we're updating the store, adding more features that have been successful in other stores we've done."

According to Hilge, 80 per cent of the existing store is being refurbished, with a pasta bar and a sit-down restaurant being added, complete with organic alcohol service.

With their second atrium, Whole Foods hopes to offer 7am calisthenics in conjunction with Hazelton Lanes, as well as chef demonstrations.
The architect for the project is Markham's Petroff Partnership Architects.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Hilge

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Behind the now familiar hoarding on the Yonge Street facade of the Toronto Reference Library, aka Metro Reference, the glazed glass wall is going in at street level, one of several renovations and expansions that will bring the famously inward-looking building out into the street.

According to Linda Mackenzie, director of research and reference libraries, there will also be a chain cafe and a gift shop that, she says, "will add some commercial activity on Yonge Street."

The entrance is also being reconceived by the Moriayama and Teshima, the building's original architects, in the form of two stacked transparent cubes that will serve as a welcome lobby, a gathering place and ultimately a place for library events.

"We did have a very recessed entrance under a canopy," Mackenzie says, "and now the two cubes combined will reach out to the edge of the property, and the curtain wall along Yonge will [also] be at the property line."

In the planning stages since 2000, and under construction for two years, the next phase of the Eastern Construction-managed $34-million project to be completed will be the expanded main floor, which is due to open in the spring.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Linda Mackenzie

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Some new business owners like a clean slate, wiping whatever came before unsentimentally away in pursuit of their own brand of success.

Peter Lilly is not that kind of business owner.

When he decided to expand his Sweet Pete's bike shop business into the Annex from its west Bloor beginnings, he decided that the old Tap bar would be the perfect place.

 "I've lived in Toronto for about 20 years," he says, "and I can remember being a patron of that bar a long time ago, so there was a bit of an attachment there."

So when you stop by, you'll see the old neon tap sign above the door. "We're going to restore that in the spring when the sign makers can get up to do the job," he says. He even kept the taps themselves, though he's not sure what he's going to do with those yet.

Which is not to say he just moved into the old space as is. "It was in pretty rough shape," he says of the old bar, which, he says, hadn't been in business for at least 8 months before he stepped into the place. "The basement was just filled with clutter, old paperwork and desks and freezers that were still running with food in them. It was insane how much junk there was."

The building had been built in three stages, with different coloured brick in different sections of the interior, so he hired Peter Woodworth of The Brick Painters to paint each brick individually to achieve some consistency. (Lilly's contractor was Brian Zahra.)

It took about $125,000 and three months to finish the 1,400 square foot space, which now includes bamboo floors, new insulation and, shortly, a solar panel. But as far as Lilly's concerned, it's been worth it. "It's just a really, really, cool space," he says.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Peter Lilly

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The gentrification of the formerly industrial Dupont strip continues westward with the renovation of the old Angelo's Diner (aka Howland Diner, aka AAA Chinese) at 268 Howland on the corner of Dupont.

Leanne Martineau and her husband, Stephen Hancock, moved onto Howland three years ago and with her history in the food industry, had her eye on this space ever since. Her husband had grown up in the area and used to go to Angelo's, which had been in business on the corner from the 1940s up to the 1970s or early 80s. "It was always a space in the neighbourhood where all the kids would go for their French fries," Martineau says.

When AAA Chinese moved out this past spring, Martineau and Hancock, along with business partners Sarah Baxter and her husband Reid Pickering, who owns The Feathers pub in The Beach, contacted the landlord, Chris Chaggaris, Angelo's son, and made a deal.

The $250,000 renovation expenses, which include putting in a full-sized basement, re-doing the interior complete with custom-made furniture by Jason Davis Design/Build, as well as recladding the small structure in brick, were split between landlord and tenants.

Martineau and Baxter will manage the restaurant, to be called Fanny Chadwick's, after a historical Annex figure Martineau uncovered, and will be hiring four wait staff and five kitchen staff for the planned mid-January opening.

The flooring was installed and kitchen appliances were moved in this week.

The restaurant will be relatively upscale, with main dishes between $15 and $25. And the neighbourhood kids, in recent years mostly from Royal St. George's College down the street? "It's not going to be a particularly attractive space for them to hang out," Martineau says. "There's certainly enough of that on Bloor Street."

"The development on Dupont -- a lot of designer firms, little intricate shops, especially closer to Spadina -- has certainly taken hold," Martineau says, "and it's just a matter of time before it continues on."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Leanne Martineau


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Robarts Library, the fourth biggest academic library in North America with 4.8 million volumes, is being de-booked.

In the middle of a two-year renovation, the massive brutalist library is undergoing a six-floor renovation, replacing stacks with study spaces to maintain the building's utility for students.

Once a sort of physical manifestation of the Internet, Robarts is now feeling the effects of the actual Internet. "Everybody's accessing information online now," says Nadeem Shabbar, the Univeristy of Toronto's chief real estate officer.

So the librarians made a list of the least-accessed books, and they're being moved to a storage facility in Downsview. Students will still have access to them, but only by special order, deliverable in 24 hours.

Four of the six floors have been completed.

The renovation has been budgeted at $24 million, and is due to be completed in early 2011, after which another, larger project will commence to add another pod-structure to the back end of the building, over the loading dock to create even more study space. The new structure will be called Robarts Pavillion.


Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nadeem Shabbar

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Toronto got its third scramble last week, this one at the intersection of Bay and Bloor.

The scramble -- an intersection that includes an all-way pedestrian green in between the usual red-green traffic cycle -- was approved at the same time as its predecessors, at Yonge and Dundas and Yonge and Bloor, by city council in 2007.

The cost of transforming the intersection was $22,425, which Fiona Chapman, who is in charge of pedestrian projects for the city's transportation department, says included "on-site programming of the traffic controller, connection of the APS (Audible Pedestrian Signals) units, fabrication of all signs, installation of the 'No Right on Red' signs, installation of the pedestrian scramble phase signage, advance warning signs and the removal of existing prohibition signs, and installation of 12 diagonal zebra stripes."

"We had a set of criteria that identified the four that council approved," says Chapman. The fourth she refers to was meant for Bay and Dundas, an idea that's since been scrapped after deciding it would create streetcar delays. "Primarily, it was the number of pedestrians, and the number of vehicles that are trying to turn" that create conflicts between cars and people on foot.

The fourth now being considered would be at the corner of St George and Harbord/Hoskin.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Fiona Chapman

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Commute Home, the Queen West design and furnishings shop behind the looks of Kultura, Nyood and others, has moved from its decade-old digs at 819 Queen West up to Dupont.

In the process, owners Sara Parisotto and Hamid Samad doubled their floor space, from 1,000 to 2,000 square feet, and given the new space at 367 Dupont, formerly a kitchen design store, and before that a Porsche repair shop, a $60,000 makeover.

"It has to do with the people you keep company with," says Samad of the reasons behind the move. "We're next door to Floorworks, and a lot of their clients would have similar tastes to our clients. We started out on Queen Street and our clients have grown. A lot of our clients now head design firms or architecture firms, and their budget has gone up a bit, so you want to be close to shops like South Hill Homes, and you're not far from the Designers Walk, Avenue and Davenport is very close."

Most of the extra space comes in the form of width, which has extra benefits for the showroom aspect of the business.

"We tried putting a couple of the items we had in the old shop," Samad says of their preparations for last weekend's soft opening. "They actually look better because there's more perspective; you can stand back and look at the items."


Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Hamid Samad

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Construction is slated to start within the next 30 days on the new Munk School of Global Affairs on Bloor Street at Devonshire.

Architecture firm KPMB will be working with builder Govan Brown on the heritage building that started life as the University of Toronto's meteorological centre and served generations of students as the admissions office.

The cost of the whole project is about $13.6 million, according to U of T's chief real estate officer, Nadeem Shabbar.

"There will be some landscaping done as well," he says, and we'll make the building accessible, because currently, it's not. We're going to put an elevator in the back of the building."

Because it's a heritage building, its fa�ade will remain unchanged.

Shabbar says the target is to complete the project by the summer of 2011.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nadeem Shabbar

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The second Menchie's frozen yogurt bar in Canada is set to open in the old Dooney's space at 511 Bloor Street West.

Though T Caf�, the business that occupied the space right after Dooney's, made some alterations, Michael Shneer, the Concord-based master franchiser for Menchie's in Canada, it's going to be unrecognizable by the time he's done with it.

"We basically had to tear out everything that was in there," says Shneer, who was also Ontario franchise-holder for LA Weight Loss. "The kitchen, the equipment, the floors, the walls, the entire basement, the bathrooms, everything." The exposed brick is being dry-walled to enable him to paint the place with the Menchie's colours.

He's even re-doing the exterior and retiling the walk-up to the front door, finally getting rid of the old Caplan's terrazzo that had been there since before the Dooney's days. The only thing Shneer's not changing for this location, a company-owned store he plans to use as a flagship to train new franchisees, is the patio.

He figures renovating the 1,300 square foot place, with its 1,300 square foot basement, cost him in the range of $200,000.

The first Menchie's opened in September in Richmond Hill, and the agreement Shneer signed with the Encino, California headquarters calls for 100 across the country in the next five years.

The Bloor Street shop is scheduled to open Oct. 30.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Michael Shneer

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X2, the condo going up on the corner of Jarvis and Charles where the old Pizza Pizza corporate offices used to be, got a major variance from the city's planning committee to add an extra 7 storeys to their original 42-storey plan.

"X and X2 were exactly the same height," says Geoff Matthews, director of development for Great Gulf Condos, referring to the first phase of the two-phase project, "and we thought we had to punctuate the skyline somewhat."

According to Matthews, the committee heard the application in June and approved it in July with no extraordinary objections.

The building will now have a total of 557 units ranging from 416 to 912 square feet, and starting around $260,000.

Demolition began at the end of August.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Geoff Matthews

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A third generation family-owned and �run Italian jewellery business, operating in Woodbridge for the past 20 years, has made the move to Yorkville, almost doubling its selling space and bringing an indie-luxe touch to a neighbourhood used to buying its chains from chains.

"We've been looking for a downtown location for quite some time," says Giorgio Bandiera, co-owner and manager of both locations of Bandiera Jewellers.

Construction took over three months, and the shop, at 123 Yorkville Avenue, opened in July, taking over the space previously occupied by the Arctic Bear knick-knack shop and La Borsa bags.

Bandiera says that all the design and interior elements were done and produced in Italy and shipped over here and installed by an Italian team supervised by Milan-based design firm BNP.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Giorgio Bandiera

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The long-delayed Florian condo project, which has been displaying its hoarding at Bay and Davenport for almost two years now, has finally gotten to its third floor.

The high-end development, which offers a couple of suites at the 700 square foot mark but is focusing on much larger units of up to 4,000 square feet, is being developed by Diamante. To accommodate the larger suite sizes, the 25-storey tower will have only 100 condos.

"It's a very high-end condo," says Diamante spokeswoman and former Toronto Star Real Estate editor Ellen Moorhouse. "It's an extension of Yorkville, drawing Yorkville north. On Davenport there was a bit of a no man's land. Ideally now, Davenport will become a nice street to walk along."

Diamante, which also developed the 1 City Hall project, as well as Domus, hasn't settled on whether there will be retail included in Florian, but Moorhouse says that if there is, it will be "low-key."

The building was designed by Young and Wright/IBI Group Architects, with interiors by Brian Gluckstein and landscapes by Church Street firm Ferris and Associates.

Diamante is estimating that the building will be ready for occupants in the spring of 2012.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Ellen Moorhouse

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The Annex space dedicated to one of Toronto's greatest poets just got 12 per cent bigger.

Gwendolyn MacEwen Park, a Walmer Road roundabout just north of Bloor named in her honour six years ago, with a bust of the poet who died in 1987, added two years later, is in the final stages of a refurbishment, reshaping and enlarging occasioned by the city's need to fix a water main in the area.

The budget for the improvement, which includes adding several benches, as well as more grass and flowers, was a little over $300,000.

"We were able to re-imagine the way that little park worked," says Councillor Adam Vaughan, in whose ward it sits. In a city unused to roundabouts, the wide circle of road that surrounded the park was a perennial cause of pedestrian and vehicular confusion, according to Vaughan. To fix that, the new park, which has increased its diameter by about 4 metres, has been made more triangular, a shape Vaughan describes as guitar pick-like. "The edge of the park is closer to the sidewalks now," he says, making it easier for pedestrians, including local school kids, to cross, "but also it feels like when you get to a stop sign, it's a corner."

Vaughan, who knew the poet slightly from his time working in Major Roberts, the old Harbord Street restaurant that later became the Kensington Kitchen and is now Tati Bistro, where MacEwen was a lunch-time regular ("She liked the tortellini," he recalls), is pleased the park in her honour has been improved.

"The cars know what's going on, the pedestrians know what's going on, and Gwendolyn's got more flowers at her feet."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan

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