Category Archives: Motion on Bay

March 29 2011: Excavation at the NE corner of the Fashion House site

March 22 2011: Motion on Bay apartment tower excavation at Bay & Dundas Streets

April 1 2011: U Condos condo tower excavation at Bay and St Mary Streets

Digging deeper: Excavations for three new highrise residential buildings are moving steadily along in three different downtown areas.

The digs at Fashion House Condos on King Street West, Motion Apartments on Bay at Dundas, and U Condos on Bay near Yorkville, all are more than one underground level deep at parts of their respective construction sites. But while excavation activity is underway on almost the entire Motion on Bay site, digging is limited to certain perimeter points at Fashion House and U Condos. Pile driving and shoring activity continues at both of those sites, where roughly three-quarters of the ground on each property has yet to be broken.

Below is a series of recent photos showing excavation progress at each building site. To view building renderings and pictures I’ve published previously, see my January 24 post on Fashion House, my January 29 post for Motion on Bay, and my February 4 and March 18 posts on U Condos.

March 29 2011: View from King Street of the Fashion House site

March 29 2011: Activity at the northwest corner of the Fashion House site

March 29 2011: Excavation at the north side of the Fashion House site

March 29 2011: Activity at the NE corner of the Fashion House site

February 15 2011: Northwest view of Motion on Bay excavation

February 15 2011: The north half of the Motion on Bay construction site

March 22 2011: Excavation activity at the SW corner of the Motion site

March 22 2011: Shoring and excavation equipment at the Motion site

April 1 2011: Digging away at the southwest corner of the U Condos site

April 1 2011: Excavator digging at the NW corner of the U Condos site

April 1 2011: The dig is more than one level deep at U Condos’ western perimeter

April 1 2011: A closer view of the depth of the excavation at the northwest corner

April 1 2011: Excavation depth along the property’s western perimeter

April 1 2011: St Mary Street view of activity at the east end of the site

April 1 2011: Preparing the Bay Street side of the site for excavation

Excavation work gets in full Motion for 29-storey apartment highrise being built at Bay & Dundas

1 Reply

Architectural rendering of Motion in Bay apartment highrise

Now digging: The parking lot is long gone and the earth is starting to move at the southwest corner of Bay and Dundas, where Concert Properties Ltd. has begun building its latest rental apartment building, Motion on Bay Street.

The 29-storey tower will house 463 rental apartments (mainly studios and 1-bedrooms units) along with ground-level retail shops. The project’s website claims occupancy is anticipated for winter 2012, but that move-in date seems overly optimistic since site excavation is still just in the early stages.

I had been wondering how long it was going to take before a developer began building here, since Motion’s 570 Bay Street address is such a prime downtown location (the Eaton Centre and Ryerson University’s business school are right across the street; City Hall and the Financial District are a short walk to the south, and the hospital district is only two blocks north). It just didn’t make sense to maintain a parking lot on a piece of land worth millions of dollars.

A 50-storey condo tower originally had been proposed for this location as a sister to One City Hall, a 16-storey condo building at 111 Elizabeth Street that will be Motion’s next-door neighbour. However, the city would not approve the project since it would ruins views of Toronto’s beloved City Hall towers immediately to the south. The land was sold (at a huge loss, I heard) to Concert, which scooped it up with plans to build a shorter highrise that wouldn’t mar City Hall sightlines.

I knew construction was imminent when the property was fenced off in late summer; pile driving equipment arrived on scene in late fall and hoarding went up over the Bay and Dundas Street sidewalks in late October and early November.

Below are pics of the Motion on Bay Street site, including some shots from 2008.

Motion on Bay Street apartment site next to the One City Hall luxury apartment building (viewed here from the east side of Bay Street on September 26 2008)