Category Archives: Architecture & Construction

In Photos: Aura at College Park

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Aura Condos at College Park Toronto

May 2 2012: A screenshot from the construction webcam for the Aura condo tower at College Park. The developer will need to adjust its camera angle soon; otherwise, construction of what will be the city’s tallest condo tower will quickly climb out of view.

 

Aura Condos at College Park Toronto

April 29 2012: Aura Condos at College Park construction viewed from the southeast corner of Yonge and Gerrard Streets.

 

On the rise: “What’s taking Aura so long?” That’s a question I’ve been asked a number of times recently by people who have been waiting, obviously rather impatiently, for the Aura condo tower at College Park to begin making its mark on the downtown skyline. They won’t have to wait much longer.

Aura already has a profound presence when viewed from ground level along parts of Yonge and Gerrard Streets, and in a few short weeks will become more visible over a wider area as it starts rising above some of its highrise neighbours. By June, I will probably be able to watch the construction from the comfort of my condo six blocks away to the northeast; right now, the orange and white cranes atop Aura are competing for my attention with the two cranes on the SickKids Centre for Research and Learning Tower two blocks to their southwest.

 

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Looking in on 3 big digs along north Yonge Street: One Bloor, Nicholas Residences & FIVE Condos

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One Bloor condo tower excavation Toronto

April 27 2012: The excavation for the One Bloor condo at Yonge & Bloor Streets keeps getting deeper along the site’s north and west sides …

 

Nicholas Residences excavation Toronto

… while three blocks south at St Mary & St Nicholas Streets, the excavation is deepest at the east and south ends of the Nicholas Residences condo tower site  …

 

FIVE Condos Toronto

… ande just two blocks farther south at Yonge & St Joseph Streets, the excavation for FIVE Condos is deepest at the northeast corner of the property

 

Digging deeper: Excavation work is continuing apace for three condo tower projects that will substantially change the look and height of Yonge Street between Bloor and Wellesley Streets. Below are photos showing how excavations have progressed in recent months at the One Bloor, Nicholas Residences and FIVE Condos construction sites.

 

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3 big digs on Yonge Street (Part 2: FIVE Condos)

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FIVE Condos site Toronto

May 1 2012: A view of the FIVE Condos development site at the southwest corner of Yonge and St Joseph Streets, one block north of Wellesley Street

 

FIVE Condos Toronto

May 1 2012: Excavation is well underway for a condo tower that will rise at least 45 storeys behind the facade of the former Rawlinson Cartage warehouse building, seen here being held in place by a giant frame on St Joseph Street

 

FIVE Condos at 5 St Joseph

 

Much like the Nicholas Residences site a short walk up the street, the 5 St Joseph Street location for FIVE Condos poses some interesting challenges for excavation crews. They, too, have been digging directly behind a row of heritage buildings that front along Yonge Street. What makes their task even more complicated, however, is that they must work beneath the 4-storey brick facade of the historic Rawlinson Cartage building that formerly occupied the site — a huge structure currently held in place by a giant steel frame on St Joseph Street. The facade eventually will be incorporated into the condo tower podium, while the west wall of another brick building that once stood next door to it on St Nicholas Street also will be reconstructed as part of the FIVE Condos development.

 

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33-storey condo with office space proposed for Church St. site near Ryerson University campus

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365 Church Street Toronto

March 7 2012: A 33-storey tower with condos and 3 floors of offices has been proposed for the site of this building at 355 Church Street …

 

355 Church Street Toronto

… presently the home of Family Service Toronto, an organization that provides counselling, support and other social services for families and individuals

 

More change for Church Street: A centre that provides counselling services for individuals and families facing difficult life challenges faces a big challenge of its own — finding new premises — now that a development application has been filed with the city to build a condo on the site of its 3-floor facility.

According to an April 26 2012 rezoning application filed with the City, a developer wants to build a 33-storey tower on the 355 Church Street site currently occupied by Family Service Toronto. The building would have a 4-storey podium with street-level retail and 3 floors of office space, topped by a 29-storey residential tower with 335 units. The building would have parking for 185 vehicles on four underground levels, along with 301 bicycle parking spaces.

 

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Reflections of cranes on MaRS

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MaRS Centre phase 2 tower construction

One of the three cranes atop the MaRS Centre Phase 2 construction site casts multiple reflections in the curved glass facade of the Ontario Power Generation building at the southwest corner of University Avenue and College Street

 

MaRS Centre Phase 2 tower

Southbound motorists and pedestrians approaching University Avenue from Queen’s Park Crescent can see intriguing reflections of the MaRS Centre construction on the OPG headquarters to their right …

 

MaRS Centre Phase 2 tower

… and get a great view of the actual construction site to their left, as seen here last month in a photo shot from the median at the foot of Queen’s Park Crescent

 

Mirror images: Three construction cranes are helping to build the MaRS Centre Phase 2 tower at the southeast corner of University Avenue and College Street. But from certain perspectives at street level, fascinating reflections on the glass facade of the Ontario Power Generation building across the street suggest there are dozens more cranes working the project.

 

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Crane removed at ETFO office construction site as concrete pour, steel frame installation concludes

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ETFO office building Toronto

April 29 2012: The yellow and black portable crane assists with the removal of the white construction crane from the ETFO office building site on Isabella Street

 

ETFO office building Toronto

April 29 2012: The operator’s cab for the construction crane is slowly lowered to a flatbed truck waiting on Isabella Street

 

ETFO office building Toronto

April 29 2012: A southwest view of the 4-storey building, which is being designed to achieve LEED platinum certification

 

ETFO office building

This artistic illustration, one of several renderings that appeared on a New Building Construction page of the ETFO website,  suggests how the building will look once construction is complete in March 2013. The organization’s headquarters was designed by Toronto’s  Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects.

 

Nicely framed: When I last reported on construction progress at the new Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) headquarters on December 8 2011, the building’s ground floor was still beginning to take shape. Only four months later, construction crews have finished pouring concrete and assembling steel framework for all four floors of the structure, and have also installed windows along sections of the first floor. And just this weekend, crews disassembled and removed the big white construction crane that had towered above the site since the middle of last August.

 

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Planners studying revised design for mixed-use highrise complex proposed for King & Spadina

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 401 King Street West

This artistic illustration, provided courtesy of Core Architects Inc., shows the 2-tower condo, retail and office development now being proposed for the southeast corner of King Street and Spadina Avenue …

 

401 King West original redevelopment proposal rendering

… in place of the single 39-story tower complex originally proposed for the site, depicted in this rendering provided by Core Architects Inc.

 

401 King Street West heritage building

The facade of this 6-storey listed heritage building at 401 King Street West …

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401 King Street West

… will still, as in the original plan, be incorporated into the new complex, as depicted in this rendering from Core Architects Inc.

 

401 King West condo development site

The new complex of two towers – rising 21 and 37 storeys, respectively, on an 8- to 11-storey podium – will totally transform the corner site, currently occupied by the 6-floor heritage-listed brick building and a 1-level liquor store.

 

New proposal: Will a condo, retail and office complex with two highrise residential buildings better suit the King & Spadina neighbourhood than a project with only one tower? That’s one of the questions that city planners will be grappling with as they assess a revised development proposal for a property on the southeast corner of the busy King-Spadina intersection.

The site, most of which is occupied by a 1-storey liquor store constructed in 2009 at 415 King West, could clearly handle highrise redevelopment. But it’s the shape, size and density of any new structure to be built there that has been a sticking point with city planners, the local councillor and area residents.

 

 

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Public meeting Tuesday for Ten York condo plan

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illustrations of proposed Ten York condo tower Toronto

Images from developer Tridel’s website show the 75-storey Ten York condo tower that has been proposed for a former parking lot site wedged between Lake Shore Boulevard, the Gardiner Expressway, Harbour Street & York Street

 

Tight squeeze: A community consultation Tuesday evening will let members of the public tell city planners what they think of Ten York, the proposed 75-storey condo tower that made national headlines when the project was unveiled late last fall.

The public session starts with a 6.30 p.m. open house followed by a meeting from 7 to 9 p.m. at the PawsWay Toronto Centre at 245 Queen’s Quay West.

Typical community consultations include a brief presentation during which a representative for a developer (often, the building architect) describes highlights of a highrise condo proposal and shows slides illustrating the shadow impacts the tower is expected to have on its neighbourhood. That’s usually followed by a comment, question and answer period chaired by the city planner in charge of the file. City planners consider community input when making final recommendations on actions Toronto City Council should take with respect to planning applications.

 

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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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