But as the middle of February approaches, the excavation crews continue to dig deeper, and it’s clear that I’ll have to wait awhile longer before I’ll get to watch the crane installation.
A project of Great Gulf Homes and Lifetime Developments, and designed by Toronto’s Wallman Architects, X2 Condos will contain 470 suites in a 49-storey tower rising directly across Charles Street from X Condos, its 44-floor “sister” skyscraper which was completed and occupied in 2010.
Below are renderings of the X2 Condos building, along with a series of photos I have shot showing the project site both before and during excavation.
This artistic rendering of the X2 Condos complex appears on a billboard mounted on hoarding around the construction site
This rendering of X2 Condos appears on the Lifetime Developments website
August 14 2008: A development proposal sign posted outside 101 Charles Street East — part of the future X2 Condos site. Developers originally planned a 44-storey tower, but later obtained city approval to add 5 more floors
August 6 2008: 101-103 Charles Street East, one of two brick houses converted into offices that formerly occupied the X2 Condos site
A Google Street View image of 97-99 Charles Street East, the second house that once occupied the X2 Condos site. Formerly office space for lawyers, the building’s final occupant was the sales centre for X2’s sister, X Condos
September 3 2008: The Pizza Pizza head office at 560-580 Jarvis Street formerly occupied the eastern flank of the X2 Condos site. During the 1980s and 90s, the building housed a Becker’s convenience store and a sports bar called Caps.
September 3 2008: The Pizza Pizza headquarters on the X2 Condos site, viewed from the intersection of Mount Pleasant Road and Jarvis Street
This cobblestone-paved, tree-shaded terrace extended along Charles Street the full length of the Pizza Pizza building. Some of the trees have been left intact; others have been destroyed for X2’s construction
November 2 2009: Signage has been removed from the former Pizza Pizza headquarters as building demolition commences
November 2 2009: Construction of the X2 Condos sales centre gets underway at 97-99 Charles East. Signs will be mounted on the wood frame.
November 22 2009: Signage advertising X2 Condos covers the facade of the former Pizza Pizza headquarters at the corner of Jarvis & Charles Streets
November 22 2009: A bold 3-storey pink & white sign marks the location of the X2 Condos sales centre at 99 Charles Street East
August 29 2010: Demolition of the former Pizza Pizza headquarters is underway
August 29 2010: Charles Street view of the Pizza Pizza building demolition
August 29 2010: An empty space and some broken bricks is all that remains of the house that previously stood at 101-103 Charles Street East
August 29 2010: Looking east along Charles toward Jarvis Street. The one-time X2 sales centre at 99 Charles East has been partially demolished. The large building in the background on Jarvis is the Rogers Communications head office
October 3 2010: Demolition of the three buildings is complete, and an empty lot remains where X2 will be built. That’s X Condos at the right.
November 11 2010: Looking west from Jarvis Street across the X2 Condos site. At the far end of the property, a work crew is conducting soil tests.
January 9 2011: Looking east across the X2 Condos site towards the Rogers Communications head office on Jarvis Street
January 29 2011: A view of the X2 Condos site from the east side of Jarvis Street
February 8 2011: A drilling machine and an excavator at work near the northwest corner of the X2 Condos site
February 8 2011: They’ve got a long way to go — the machines will have to excavate a hole deep enough to hold six underground parking levels
February 16 2011: A drilling machine works at the northwest corner of the X2 Condos site next to the intersection of Jarvis & Charles Streets
February 23 2011: The City of Toronto has established protection zones for some of the trees alongside the X2 site on Charles Street
February 16 2011: A city sign on the tree protection enclosure
March 24 2011: Drilling and shoring machines on the X2 Condos site
April 2 2011: Some of the steel I-beams sunk deep into the ground to shore up the west end of the construction site
April 7 2011: A busy day of drilling and earth moving
April 7 2011: A stack of the steel beams used to shore the site prior to excavation
April 7 2011: Shoring activity at the northwest corner of the property
April 22 2011: Shoring work along the south side of the site, next to the 11-storey apartment building at 550 Jarvis Street
April 22 2011: A tree protection zone next to the west end of the site
June 5 2011: Drilling and shoring work continues into June
June 22 2011: Early stages of excavation on the east side of the site
July 9 2011: From Jarvis Street, it appears that excavation hasn’t yet begun …
… and that’s also the case looking across the site from the northeast corner …
… but it’s an entirely different story at the west end of the property, where crews are quickly making progress with the excavation
July 9 2011: Another view of excavation progress at the west end of the site
July 16 2011: Looking across the excavation toward Jarvis Street through a security fence at the northwest corner of the X2 Condos site
July 16 2011: Excavation progress near the middle of the property
August 6 2011: Overlooking the excavation from the northeast corner
September 3 2011: The excavation is getting deeper across the entire site, viewed here from the southeast corner of the property near Jarvis Street
September 3 2011: Excavation progress near the corner of Jarvis & Charles Streets
September 3 2011: Overlooking the excavation from the west end of the site
September 3 2011: Looking into the pit from Charles Street
September 3 2011: Support pipes reinforce the southwest corner
September 24 2011: Looking into the pit from the construction ramp off Jarvis Street. Protective tarps are pulled over the dirt ramp after crews finish work.
October 29 2011: Excavation activity is focussed on the west end of the site
October 29 2011: Construction workers access the excavation from the stairs at the northwest corner of the site
November 4 2011: Excavation keeps getting deeper at the west end
November 19 2011: Workers pull tarps over the construction ramp
November 25 2011: Overlooking the dig from the southeast corner at Jarvis Street
December 5 2011: Excavation work continues into the final month of the year
December 11 2011: Crews continue digging even deeper
December 11 2011: A view of the northwest corner of the pit …
… and a closer look at the southwest corner of the excavation
January 8 2012: There’s much more digging to be done in the southeast corner …
January 8 2012 … and in the northeast corner, where a machine in the pit piles earth into a mound so an excavator at ground level can in turn scoop it into dump trucks waiting in a staging area on Jarvis Street
January 8 2012: A red excavator digs deep along the south side of the site
January 13 2012: Work continues after a light snowfall blankets the site
January 15 2012: There’s still a lot of earth to be moved from the northeast corner of the excavation …
January 15 2012 … where the digger in the pit keeps feeding the one a few storeys above it on Jarvis Street
January 28 2012: As the month draws to a close, it looks like the excavation is complete, but there’s a lot more digging still to be done
February 2 2012: The digging activity continues into another month
February 9 2012: More earth moving at the west end of the excavation …
February 11 2012 … while yesterday two machines kept digging away