Monthly Archives: January 2014

Drilling rigs ready to rumble at Ten York condo site

10 York Street condo tower

January 18 2014: An Anchor Shoring rig stands on the site where Tridel will build its skyline-changing Ten York condominium tower. 

 

 

10 York condo tower

This Tridel photo illustration shows how the wedge-shaped Ten York condo tower (center) will rise to prominence between the elevated Gardiner Expressway and the Gardiner’s raised exit ramp to York, Bay and Yonge Streets.

 

 

Ten York’s turn: Preliminary construction work is starting on an eagerly-awaited condominium tower that will transform a tightly-cramped and unsightly piece of land into a premier residential address and, at the same time, greatly enhance one of the bleakest-looking blocks in the city’s south downtown core.

Foundation drilling rigs are in place at 10 York Street, where Tridel will build its highly successful Ten York tower, one of 2012’s best-selling condominium projects.

Ordinarily, the oddly-shaped property would seem an unlikely place to build a skyscraper — let alone one that people would love to live in.

Roughly triangular in shape, the site is completely surrounded on all sides by busy roads that are often clogged with traffic — Lake Shore Boulevard and the Gardiner Expressway to the north, Harbour Street and the Gardiner’s elevated off-ramp to York, Bay and Yonge Streets to the south, and of course York Street itself to the east. These high-volume thoroughfares, along with a large above-ground parking garage on the south side of Harbour Street, make the pie-shaped area from York to Lower Simcoe Street one of the darkest, ugliest and noisiest places in the downtown core. The block presents pedestrians and cyclists with a harsh and unpleasant streetscape they wouldn’t want to linger on, but would rather hurry past to get somewhere nicer.

But Ten York should improve the pedestrian experience enormously — as should a three-tower mixed-use development that will revitalize another similarly dismal strip of land on the east side of York Street. (See my January 26 post, which profiles construction progress on a Menkes project that will transform a 1-hectare site at 1 York Street into a vital new residential and employment hub.)

Together, the Tridel and Menkes projects will renew and repurpose two “islands” of under-utilized real estate — roughly half a kilometer in length — that have long been a visual and physical barrier separating Toronto’s popular Harbourfront district from its bustling commercial core. In addition to enhancing the public realm, the new buildings will  establish a pleasant gateway between the two neighbourhoods — especially if the City ever follows through on plans to remove or reconfigure the Gardiner off-ramps that pass beside the development sites.

 

Ten York condo 

A Tridel image showing a street-level perspective of the prow-shaped Ten York podium. The 69-storey skyscraper was designed by Toronto’s Wallman Architects.

 

 

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Underground floors filling in fast for 1 York Street office building & Harbour Plaza condo towers

Artistic rendering of the One York Street office tower and 90 Harbour Street condo towers by Menkes Developments

This artistic rendering depicts a view from the southwest of the One York Street office building and the Harbour Plaza Residences condo towers that Menkes Developments Ltd. is constructing in the south downtown core

 

 

1 York Street office tower

January 18 2013: So far, only cranes and hoarding are visible at the construction site, as seen here from the southwest corner of York and Harbour Streets…

 

 

1 York Street and 90 Harbour Street

… but what passersby can’t see is that, behind the hoarding, construction of the underground levels for the office & condo complex is nearly at street level

 

 

Approaching grade: It won’t be long before the landmark Menkes condo and office tower development at 1 York Street and 90 Harbour Street begins to rise from the ground and significantly transform the entire look and feel of the southeast downtown core.

Hidden behind hoarding and not readily visible to most people passing by, work has been progressing quickly on the underground parking levels for the One York Street office building and the two Harbour Plaza Residences condo towers.

Only 13 months ago, excavation was just getting underway on the building site — a long, rectangular parcel of land awkwardly situated between several major traffic arteries — the Gardiner Expressway and Lake Shore Boulevard to the north, York Street to the west, and Harbour Street and the elevated York/Bay/Yonge offramp from the Gardiner to the south. The property was formerly occupied by a 5-storey brown brick building originally constructed for the Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Board in 1953, and subsequently used as headquarters for the Ontario Provincial Police. The building was demolished during the summer of 2011 (see my July 17 2011 post for photos showing how the site looked before it was acquired by Menkes Developments Ltd.).

By late summer of 2013, work had started on the office tower’s bottom underground level, even though hundreds of truckloads of soil remained to be excavated from the easterly two-thirds of the block-long site.

But by the beginning of December 2013, the below-ground parking floors were steadily taking shape across the entire length of the property.

Now, within weeks, the One York Street office tower will start to climb above the hoarding, finally bringing the construction activity into clear view of passersby.

 

1 York Street

December 13 2012: A crew works on the western perimeter of the future One York Street office tower location. This is a view looking south across the building site from the southeast corner of Lake Shore Boulevard and York Street.

 

 

1 York Street

August 19 2013: A crew works on the bottom underground level of the One York Street office tower as excavation continues on the eastern two-thirds of the building site where the Harbour Plaza condo towers will ultimately rise

 

 

1 York Street

December 3 2013: Underground levels are quickly taking shape

 

 

 1 York Street

January 18 2014: Rebar for several support columns on the west side of the office tower building site extend almost to street level

 

 

Please turn to page 2 of this post to view additional construction photos and see more than a dozen artistic renderings of the One York Street office building and the two Harbour Plaza Residences condo towers.

 

 

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Demolition of elevated podium segment marks start of apartment tower project on Sherbourne Street

545-555 Sherbourne Street

August 9 2013: Since 1977, this landscaped podium over Earl Street has linked the rental apartment highrise at 555 Sherbourne, left, with its sister tower at 545 Sherbourne (right), blocking views of buildings in St James Town to the east

 

 

545-555 Sherbourne Street

January 20 2014: Demolition of the podium link, which started one week ago, has already improved the streetscapes and views immensely

 

 

Long wait: Preliminary work has finally begun on a long-awaited construction project that will add a fourth tower plus 40 townhomes to a 37-year-old Sherbourne Street highrise apartment complex — drastically improving the look of three adjacent streets in the process.

Demolition began one week ago on an elevated concrete structure that had provided outdoor amenity space between the apartment towers at 545 and 555 Sherbourne Street. The landscaped deck, which passed over Earl Street, was part of a podium that contained a grocery store, retail shops and a fitness club, all linked to a third highrise apartment building at 565 Sherbourne.

Constructed in 1977 on the western flank of downtown Toronto’s heavily populated St James Town neighbourhood, the 545-565 Sherbourne complex contains 1,117 rental units in two 31-storey towers and one 28-storey highrise.

 

Redevelopment plan will revitalize 37-year-old complex

Once a vibrant and popular apartment enclave boasting a street-level Loblaws grocery store and other retail shops, a multi-level racquet sports and fitness centre, and a block-long landscaped podium roof deck with jogging track, 545-565 Sherbourne has not aged well and in the past decade has looked increasingly tired and worn, particularly at street level.

The Loblaws supermarket closed in the late 1990s and was replaced with a discount No Frills grocery store, while the fitness club shut down in the early 2000s and its large space has remained vacant ever since. A Shoppers Drug Mart was constructed beside 565 Sherbourne in 2007, slightly improving the appearance of the complex’s north side; however, the building frontage along Sherbourne has looked increasingly run-down in recent years, while the property’s street-level face along Earl and Bleecker Streets has long been dark, dingy and dismal.

 

565, 555 and 545 Sherbourne Street Toronto

April 10 2011: The rental apartment buildings at 565, 555 and 545 Sherbourne Street, as seen from the intersection of Isabella and Sherbourne Streets

 

 

 

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