Monthly Archives: March 2012

Taking a peek at the Panorama condo tower’s tight proximity to the Gardiner Expressway

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Panorama condos Toronto

Looking up at the elevated Gardiner Expressway and the 24-storey Panorama condo tower from the west side of the condo property

 

Panorama condo tower Toronto

The Gardiner dominates views from the condo lobby entrance

 

Panorama Condos Toronto

Another west view of the expressway and the tower

 

Panorama condos Toronto

Visitors drive or walk beneath the Gardiner to reach the condo entrance

 

Towering over traffic:  It seems my March 15 post and photos of the Garrison at the Yards condo project near Fort York piqued quite a bit of curiosity about new condo development that is taking place literally just a few feet from the shoulders of the elevated Gardiner Expressway. Some readers have asked if I could post pictures of other condo towers that stand equally close to the Gardiner, while on Sunday March 18 the Toronto Star published an article headlined: “Toronto condos: How close is too close to the Gardiner?”

Garrison at the Yards isn’t the first building to rise side-by-side with the city’s controversial raised expressway, and it won’t be the last: in just a few years, it will be joined by about a half-dozen more highway-hugging highrises.  All are following in the footsteps of the 24-storey Panorama condo tower which opened a couple of years back. Squeezed onto a wedge-shaped parcel of land between The Gardiner and Lake Shore Boulevard west, Panorama’s location ensures that residents overlook busy traffic routes from virtually all sides of the building.

 

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Demolition clears site for Tableau condo tower

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Tableau condo site

January 14 2011: This photo is a year old, but this was basically what the Peter & Richmond Street site for Tableau Condominiums looked like the last time I passed by a little less than two weeks ago …

 

Tableau condos site

… and this was how it looked like when I walked by on Friday evening

 

Tableau’s time has come: Back in February I noticed signs for Progreen Demolition outside the buildings on the southeast corner of Peter and Richmond Streets, where the 36-storey Tableau Condominium tower will be built. When I walked past about two weeks ago, I saw several contractors ripping apart the interior of the vacant Pizzaville store — one of three structures on the site. And when I passed by again this past Friday evening, all that I saw were piles of rubble, a few Liebherr excavation machines, and just a small section of the facade and former front entrance for what was once a four-level brick building at 117 Peter Street.

 

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Bistro favoured by film stars serves last meal, Cresford cooks up condo tower to take its place

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Bistro 990 restaurant at 990 Bay Street Toronto

March 2 2012: Once a popular hangout for Hollywood celebrities attending the Toronto International Film Festival, Bistro 990 has closed after 23 years in business

 

984 Bay Street and 1000 Bay Street Toronto

The restaurant and its next-door neighbour at 794 Bay Street, a 7-storey building that formerly housed doctors’ offices and medical lab facilities …

 

1000 Bay Street Toronto

… along with the adjacent surface parking lot at 1000 Bay Street, on the northwest corner of Bay and St. Joseph Streets, will be razed and replaced  …

 

1Thousand Bay condos Toronto

… by a 32-storey, 478-unit glass condominium highrise depicted in this artistic illustration that appears on the website for Cresford Developments …

 

984 Bay Street 1Thousand Bay sales centre

… which has opened its presentation centre for 1Thousand Bay in a street-level space once occupied by a retail drug store

 

Last supper: A Bay Street bistro long famous for its celebrity clientele served its last customers and closed its doors on Saturday night, clearing the way for a glass condominium tower designed by Toronto’s architectsAlliance to take its place.

Bistro 990 had operated at 990 Bay Street for 23 years. In its heyday, it was a a popular restaurant hangout for Hollywood stars visiting the city for the Toronto International Film Festival. The restaurant lost some of its appeal in recent years as local foodies grew less fond of classic French cuisine, and then lost some of its celebrity lustre when the film festival relocated from Yorkville to the TIFF Bell Lightbox two years ago.

 

 

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City Scene: Cinema Tower on the rise

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Cinema Tower condos Toronto

March 16 2012: Construction progress on Cinema Tower as seen from Peter Street to the northwest, looking through a construction entrance to the Peter Street condominiums location at the northeast corner of Peter and Adelaide Streets. I published photo updates of Cinema Tower in a March 9 2012 post, and reported on demolition activity at Peter Street Condominiums on February 21 2012.

 

 

Couture Condos quickly catching up to X’s height

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Couture Condos and X Condos

March 16 2011: Couture Condos, left, has now climbed to 42 storeys. X Condos, right, has 44 floors, but once Couture’s mechanical penthouse is built, Couture will stand a full 3 meters taller than its next-door neighbour

 

More details and photos on the next page.

 

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Hotel open, but work continues atop Trump Tower

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Trump International Hotel + Tower Toronto

March 15 2012: How the top of the Trump International Hotel + Tower appeared in this zoom view from my balcony this morning …

 

Toronto Financial District skyline

… and how it appeared in this wider view of the Financial District skyline

 

Nearly there: It has been six weeks since the hotel section of the Trump International Hotel + Tower Toronto held its “soft” opening, but work on the exterior of the skyscraper’s uppermost levels still isn’t finished. But it’s getting there.

The Trump Hotel Toronto began receiving guests on January 31 even though considerable work remained to be done on the building’s exterior, and particularly on the condo section of the 65-storey tower. But the hotel’s clientele have probably been too busy relaxing in their spacious, swanky suites, or savouring the $48 veal chops in the Trump’s Stock Restaurant & Bar, to even notice that construction is continuing. (Globe and Mail restaurant critic Joanne Kates reviewed the veal — and other menu items — in a March 2 2012 column, in case you’re interested in reading how Stock’s appetizers “taste as unexciting as they sound, and the mains are close behind.”)

 

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Crane to be removed from Burano condo tower

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Burano Condo tower

This red and white crane has been a familiar sight above the Burano Condos construction site since the fall of 2009 …

 

Burano Condos cranes

… but it will soon be disassembled and removed from the top of the 50-storey tower. The portable grey jib crane behind it will finish off the remaining construction work on the building.

 

Job done: A familiar sight will soon disappear from the city skyline.

The red and white construction crane that helped build the 50-storey Burano condo tower is about to be disassembled and removed from the site, as signalled by the installation of a temporary jib crane atop the building during the past two days. Now that the heavy lifting is done, the big crane will be moved to another construction site, and the smaller jib crane will finish the work that remains on Burano.

 

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Garrison condos get cozy with the Gardiner

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Garrison at the Yards condos Toronto

March 14 2012: Construction has reached 7 floors on the Garrison at the Yards condo building, seen looking east along Fort York Boulevard

 

Garrison at the Yards condos Toronto

March 14 2012: Windows and cladding have been installed along the first level of residential units. This is the building’s northwest side.

 

Garrison at the Yards condos Toronto

March 14 2012: Garrison at the Yards construction progress viewed from the northeast at the intersection of Bathurst Street and Fort York Boulevard

 

Garrison at the Yards condos Toronto

March 14 2012: The southeast side of the building is practically spitting distance from the Gardiner Expressway

 

Garrison at the Yards condos Toronto

March 14 2012: Looking toward Garrison at the Yards from Bathurst Street, on the south side of the Gardiner Expressway

 

Close quarters: Even though my condo is set back about 100 feet from a busy 4-lane downtown street, the traffic noise is sometimes almost deafening, while often very distracting and disrupting. If we keep the windows and balcony door open, we can’t hear the television or the stereo, and it’s often difficult to carry on a conversation or speak on the phone. So I can’t even begin to imagine what the noise levels must be like in condos overlooking the Gardiner Expressway from only a few meters away. I certainly couldn’t live in one.

But proximity to a busy expressway isn’t discouraging people from buying units in the steadily growing number of new buildings being constructed just spitting distance from the Gardiner, like Garrison at the Yards.

 

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City Scene: Taking in an ÏCE view

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ICE Condos west tower

March 7 2012: A construction worker gazes at downtown Toronto from the curved west building of the 2-tower ÏCE Condos complex currently under construction at the southwest corner of York Street and Bremner Boulevard. Construction of the oval-shaped tower has reached more than 11 levels so far, on its way to 57 storeys. A project of Lanterra Developments, ÏCE Condos was designed by Peter Clewes of Toronto’s architectsAlliance.

 

ICE Condos Toronto

March 7 2012: Looking south from Bremner Boulevard towards the ÏCE Condos construction site. At left, construction of the 67-storey east tower has reached 3 levels while its sibling, center, has already climbed 11 levels on its way to 57. A 31-storey office building will eventually be constructed on the parking lots site in the foreground. The building under construction to the right is the Infinity3 condo tower, which has risen 9 floors on its way to 34. Infinity3 is a project of The Conservatory Group, and was designed by E.I. Richmond Architects Ltd.

 

 

Crane installation underway at X2 Condos site

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X2 Condos crane installation

March 10 2012: Charles Street is blocked to traffic while a portable crane installs the fixed-position construction crane that will build X2 Condos

 

X2 Condos crane installation

March 10 2012: The crane is being installed in the northwest corner of the 5-level-deep excavation for the 49-storey condo tower

 

X2 Condos crane installation

March 10 2012: The blue lower half of the crane rises from the deep excavation only meters from the south side of Charles Street

 

Assembly day: Another construction crane is rising on the city skyline today, joining dozens of other cranes already working on major condo, office and other building projects throughout the downtown core. The new crane will soar skyward above Jarvis and Charles Streets, where it will help construct the  X2 Condos tower for developer Great Gulf Homes.

X2 Condos will be a 49-storey tower designed by Toronto’s Rudy Wallman Architects Inc. It will be a “sister” skyscraper to Great Gulf’s highly popular X Condos, a 44-storey tower which opened for occupancy in the summer of 2010 just a stone’s throw away on the north side of  Charles Street. (X Condos was designed by a different architectural firm, Peter Clewes and his team at architectsAlliance of Toronto.)

 

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It’s showtime as Cinema Tower starts to climb

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Cinema Tower condos Toronto

March 7 2012: Cinema Tower construction viewed from the NW corner of Widmer and Adelaide Streets. The tower has started to rise above its 5-floor podium, which will hold four levels of above-ground parking.

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Cinema Tower condos Toronto

March 7 2012: A closer view, from the northwest, of the tower segment of the condo project. Festival Tower stands to the rear left.

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Cinema Tower condos Toronto

March 7 2012: Cinema Tower’s gently curved floorplates contrast sharply with the rectangular podium, viewed from Widmer Street

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Cinema Tower condos Toronto

March 7 2012: Looking up the south side of the building from the laneway behind Festival Tower and the TIFF Bell Lightbox. The entrance ramp for the above-ground parking is situated at the bottom right corner of the podium.

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Higher drama: Cinema Tower has started to display its elegant curves as the residential component of the 43-storey condo complex continues to climb above its base at the southeast corner of Widmer and Adelaide Streets.

For nearly six months since last summer, when the building began to rise above grade, construction of the podium took center stage. A large, rectangular concrete structure, the podium features four levels of indoor parking above street-level retail space and a ground-floor lobby and concierge area for the condo tower. (Below ground are four additional levels of parking. About 200 vehicle spaces there will be operated as a commercial parking facility, while the other 200 spots in the building will be private parking for residents.)

The construction action got a little more interesting in late January when the first of 38 condo floors began to take shape atop the podium. With four levels of condos now constructed, the tower is already developing a dramatic presence in the area, and will continue to bask in the limelight as it gradually grows taller on the Entertainment District skyline.

 

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Builder donates $40 million to SickKids Tower

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SickKids Research & Learning Tower

Construction on the SickKids Centre for Research & Learning tower dominates the view north from the intersection of Bay and Queen Streets

 

Record gift: The head of the biggest home building company in Canada has donated a whopping $40 million to what will become the country’s biggest highrise research facility.

The gift from Peter Gilgan, the founder, president and CEO of Mattamy Homes, was announced publicly on Wednesday. The donation will support construction and operating costs for the 21-storey, $400 million Centre currently under construction at the northwest corner of Bay and Elm Streets.

 

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City Scene: Skating in sunshine and 16 degrees

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Ice skating at Toronto City Hall

Skaters enjoy the rink at Nathan Phillips Square under sunny skies and mild 16-degree temperatures Wednesday afternoon. A National Historic Site, Toronto’s Old City Hall provides a grand backdrop for those enjoying their icetime. Built from 1889-1899, Old City Hall was designed by Toronto architect E.J. Lennox.

 

Logo installation underway at PwC tower

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PwC office tower Toronto

March 7 2012: One-third of the lead tenant’s logo has now been installed on the south side of the PwC office tower at Southcore Financial Centre …

 

PwC office tower Toronto

… seen here from Lake Shore Boulevard to the south on January 6 2012.  (The two ÏCE condo towers being constructed in the foreground eventually will block this view of the 26-storey PwC office building at 18 York Street.)

 

Waiting for the WC: The logo for its namesake anchor tenant is finally being installed atop the PwC Tower at Southcore Financial Centre.

When I passed by the building back on February 20, a swing stage above the top left corner on the tower’s south side hinted that the PwC logo would soon be affixed to the face of the 26-storey headquarters for the Canadian head office of tax firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers International Limited.

 

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