Monthly Archives: June 2012

Passersby get good street-level views of Burano as condo construction hoarding comes down

Burano Condos

June 13 2012: The Burano condo tower, viewed from the north on Bay Street, has long been in public view as the construction climbed 50 floors above the ground …

 

Burano Condos Toronto

… and the 3-storey glass atrium at the north side of the Burano condo site is finally in full view, too, now that hoarding has been removed from Grosvenor Street

 

Burano Condos Toronto

 June 13 2012: Landscaping and construction of an Italian-style piazza is underway next to the atrium on the Grosvenor Street flank of the condo complex

 

Burano Condos Toronto

June 13 201: Most of the rebuilt Bay Street facade of the historic Addison automotive building is now visible as construction hoarding is gradually removed from the sidewalk

 

Burano Condos Toronto

June 13 2012: The new Women’s College Hospital building (left) rises behind the Burano condo complex, viewed here from the southeast corner of Bay and Grenville Streets

 

Better views: Construction progress on the Burano Condominium on Bay Street has been clearly visible for many months as the tower climbed 50 storeys into the sky, but now passersby are getting to see how downtown’s newest skyscraper looks at street level.

With exterior work on the Burano tower nearly complete, crews have been able to begin removing the wooden hoarding and the chainlink security fences that have obscured street-level views of the building, including its signature glass atrium on Grosvenor Street and the rebuilt brick facade of the historic Addison on Bay automotive showroom and garage along Bay Street and Grenville Street.

 

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Development plan in works for 81 Wellesley East?

81 Wellesley Street East Toronto

June 14 2012: A drilling machine sits in the vacant lot at 81 Wellesley Street East …

 

Odette House at 81 Wellesley Street East Toronto

… site of the former Odette House mansion, seen here on September 27 2011. Residents in the Church-Wellesley Village neighbourhood were outraged when the building and its charming coach house were demolished without warning in January of this year.

 

Condo proposal coming? Almost six months after the contemptible demolition of an historic mansion on Wellesley Street East infuriated a city councillor and residents in the downtown Church & Wellesley neighbourhood, activity on the site suggests a development proposal for the property may finally be in the works.

For at least three days this past week, a crew and drilling machine could be seen working on different parts of the now-vacant lot at 81 Wellesley Street East. An area resident said he was told that the crew was taking soil core samples — a procedure which is often a precursor to property redevelopment.

Neighbourhood residents suspect that a developer will soon file an application with the city to erect either a condo or apartment building on the site — an application they have been expecting ever since the two buildings that once occupied the property were suddenly destroyed during the winter. Now, they’re nervously awaiting word about just how big and tall any proposed new building might be. (A city planner told me last winter that the site is suitable only for a low-rise or mid-rise building, and is not large enough to support a highrise condo tower. However, many area residents fear that a tower is exactly what’s in the pipeline.)

 

 

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Former nursing student residence & budget hotel at 90 Gerrard West coming down in pieces

90 Gerrard Street West Toronto

The Residence at 90 Gerrard Street West, seen here on April 27 2012 when most of the glass had been removed from its windows …

 

90 Gerrard Street West Toronto

… is gradually being taken apart, piece by piece …

 

90 Gerrard Street West Toronto

… after which time the demolished building eventually be replaced by a new lecture hall facility for the University Health Network

 

Midrise deconstruction: The piece-by-piece demolition of a former residence for nursing students is taking some people in downtown Toronto by surprise.

On Wednesday afternoon, I watched as crews removed sections of the concrete exterior of the 19-storey building at 90 Gerrard Street West, a midrise tower that was originally constructed as a nursing student residence in 1969 and, in recent years, operated as a budget hotel called The Residence. (The accommodations had been popular with patients — and their families — who had to come to Toronto for appointments and treatments at Toronto General Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children across the street, as well as other downtown medical institutions.)

 

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Through another lens: the One Bloor excavation

One Bloor condo tower construction

May 12 2012: Excavation activity at the One Bloor condo site. Photo by Doug Lewis Images.

 

Condo sandbox: Nobody has figured out how to turn back time yet, but this week some Toronto construction photos by Doug Lewis Images managed to instantly take me back to a summer during my childhood. The images — real photos made to look miniature — captured excavation activity during May and June at the One Bloor condo tower construction site. The second I saw them, I remembered playing “construction” with other kids in my neighbourhood, moving dirt around a sandbox with our die-cast Dinky® and Corgi® toy backhoes and dumptrucks.

Although I can’t remember what my buddies and I may have been trying to build way back then, it could well have been skyscrapers. But they would have been office buildings, not condo towers with 70-plus stories, like One Bloor. Those didn’t exist yet; in fact, neither did the CN Tower, the Toronto-Dominion Centre or Toronto’s new City Hall, for that matter.

Below are three more photos showing Doug Lewis’s unique miniature perspective of excavation work at the One Bloor site on June 1. (See the post below for a separate update on the One Bloor condo tower project.)

If you have photos of Toronto-area buildings and construction activity you’d like me to consider publishing in my new “Through another lens” feature, drop me a line. My email is: [email protected].

 

One Bloor condo excavation

June 1 2012: One Bloor condo tower excavation activity viewed from Bloor Street to the north. Photo by Doug Lewis Images.

 

One Bloor condo tower excavation

June 1 2012: An excavator works near the northeast corner of the excavation site, below the Xerox building at 33 Bloor St. East. Photo by Doug Lewis Images.

 

One Bloor condo tower excavation

June 1 2012: The pit’s southeast corner below Hayden Street. Photo by Doug Lewis Images.

 

Developer gets city’s approval to raise One Bloor condo tower height from 70 to 75 storeys

One Bloor condo tower construction

June 13 2012: Excavation work continues at the southeast corner of Yonge & Bloor Streets where Great Gulf Homes is building its One Bloor condo tower

 

Five more floors: One Bloor, the landmark condo tower under construction at the southeast corner of Yonge & Bloor Streets, will be climbing five floors higher as a result of a Committee of Adjustment hearing at City Hall this week.

In an application to the committee, the project developer had requested a zoning bylaw variance that would allow it to raise the tower’s height from 70 to 75 storeys, as well as increase the building’s gross floor area from 55,910 square meters to 68,634 square meters.  The application was item number 26 on the Committee of Adjustment’s June 13 meeting agenda.

 

 

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Top of Toronto Trump Tower nears completion

Trump Tower Toronto

June 7 2012: Installation of the Trump logo continues on the 65-storey, 908-foot Trump International Hotel + Tower at Bay & Adelaide Streets

 

Waiting for a P:  The 261 hotel rooms in the bottom half of the Trump International Hotel + Tower opened to guests more than five months ago, but work on the exterior of the building’s uppermost levels and spire base still hasn’t finished. But installation of the giant Trump logo, which started over two weeks ago, signals that completion of exterior construction isn’t far off.

 

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