Tag Archives: construction cranes

2nd crane installed at WC Hospital building site

March 27 2011: With the installation of this crane at the north end of the Women’s College Hospital construction site on Saturday, there are now two cranes building a new medical facility on the east side of the hospital property

The two construction cranes at the Women’s College Hospital building site, seen in a photo shot from Grenville Street this afternoon. The crane in the center of the picture was installed earlier this month; the other, on Saturday.

Two cranes in the crater: A second crane was installed yesterday at the excavation site where a new Women’s College Hospital building is under construction. It joins another crane that went up on the site earlier this month, as I reported in a March 14 post. Meanwhile, site excavation continues. Below are some photos taken Friday, showing work crews preparing the pit for the installation of the second crane. There’s also several photos of the new crane being assembled on Saturday, along with some pics from today of the crane and the excavation site.

March 25 2011: Grenville Street view of the Womens College Hospital excavation

March 25 2011: Grenville Street view of excavation activity at the Women’s College Hospital construction site

March 25 2011: Excavation activity at the northeast corner of the site

March 25 2011: Pink shed in the southwest corner of the excavation

March 25 2011: Digging deeper at the north end of the site, to prepare for installation of a second construction crane the next day

March 25 2011: The new hospital building is scheduled for completion in 2015

March 25 2011: Grosvenor Street view of excavation progress

March 25 2011: Grosvenor Street view of the excavation, looking south

March 25 2011: A giant mound of earth still must be removed from the site

March 25 2011: Grosvenor Street view of the east side of the construction site

March 26 2011: It took the entire day on Saturday for these two portable cranes on Grosvenor Street to install a second construction crane on the Women’s College Hospital building site.

March 26 2011: This crane, erected earlier this month, stands at the south end of the site, near Grenville Street. A second crane was installed at the north end of the site on Saturday

March 26 2011: Part of the main platform for the second crane is hoisted into position. The new hospital facility will rise between the Burando condo tower at left and the old Women’s College building at right.

March 26 2011: The crane installation started before sunrise on Saturday and continued non-stop all day until after sunset.

March 27 2011: The platform is lowered into position

March 26 2011: Crane segments are assembled on Grosvenor Street

March 26 2011: Workers maneuver a crane segment on Grosvenor Street

March 26 2011: The operator of the portable crane that lifts segments of the new construction crane into place above the hospital building site.

March 26 2011: A worker waits on the partially assembled crane platform while the next piece of the construction crane is hoisted up from Grosvenor Street.

March 26 2011: Waiting patiently for the next piece of crane to arrive

March 26 2011: Another piece of the crane on its way up

March 26 2011: A Grosvenor Street view of the two portable cranes, the partially assembled crane, and the first crane installed earlier this month.

March 26 2011: Two workers position a crane segment

March 26 2011: The big hook used to hoist the heavy crane segments into place

March 26 2011: One of the cranes on Grosvenor Street unloads crane segments from transport trucks and moves them into position so workers can bolt them together. Another crane later lifts the assembled boom into place.

March 26 2011: The partially assembled crane casts its shadow on Burano

March 26 2011: One crane up, the other nearly there

March 27 2011: The Burano Condos construction crane, left, and the crane on the south side of the Women’s College Hospital redevelopment site, right.

March 27 2011: The crane at the south end of the hospital construction site

March 27 2011: The counterweight on the south crane

March 27 2011: The newly-installed construction crane in late afternoon sunshine

March 27 2011: The two cranes at the Women’s College Hospital site

City Scenes: Snowy Bay Street building sites

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Snow day: The calendar says it’s spring, but Toronto is getting another blast of winter with 5 cm. of snow falling throughout the day today. This photo, looking north from Queen Street on another snowy day earlier this winter, shows three major building sites on Bay Street. The orange construction crane is building the Sick Kids Research & Learning Tower at Elm Street; the crane in the middle of the photo is atop the Burano condo tower between Grenville and Grosvenor Streets; and the crane at the rear of the picture, on the east side of Bay, is atop the Four Seasons Toronto hotel and condo tower.

Snow motion: This photo was taken on the same day as the one above, a few blocks further north up Bay Street. It shows the Motion on Bay highrise apartment building construction site at left, along with the Sick Kids and Burano towers to the north.

Ice view: This was a view this afternoon of the Sick Kids Research and Learning Tower construction site from an ice-covered webcam high above the building.

Snowy Aura: Although it’s not on Bay Street itself, Aura condos is part of the College Park complex that occupies the entire eastern block of Bay between Gerrard and College Streets. This is a webcam view of the Aura condos construction site earlier this afternoon.

City Scene: Criss-crossed construction cranes

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Crossing paths: The boom of one construction crane appears to be resting atop another in this photo from February 18. The two cranes are building the new ICE Condos and Infinity3 condo towers in the former railway lands area south of the Financial District. The tower in the background is an old timer: it’s one of the Harbour Square condo buildings constructed in Harbourfront, at the foot of Bay Street, way back in the late 1970s.

Crane removed from Uptown Residences roof

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Now you see it … the Uptown tower sports a rooftop crane on March 1

Now you don’t … The Uptown on March 8 after its crane was removed. The crane boom poking out from behind the Casa condo tower (right) is building the new Four Seasons Toronto hotel & condo in Yorkville.

Condo craniotomy: The YWCA Elm Centre wasn’t the only major downtown construction project to lose its crane this week.

In my “Yorkville awaits the Uptown girl’s grand entrance” write-up a week ago, I posted photos of The Uptown Residences, and described how construction of the 48-storey Yorkville condo tower is winding down. I also mentioned that a small construction crane still had to be removed from the condo tower rooftop.

Well, it’s gone now — it was disassembled and removed from the building yesterday. And even though I had been expecting the crane to disappear at any time, I wasn’t quite ready to see The Uptown Residences sporting a naked roof. I had an unsettling feeling while snapping photos of the crane-less tower shortly before sunset yesterday, and I kept thinking something about the Yorkville skyline just didn’t look right.

From my balcony, I have watched cranes working on The Uptown’s roof since the late fall of 2009, and during some of those 18 months The Uptown’s crane stood higher than any other structure in the Yonge & Bloor area. It became such a familiar sight on the skyline, I was bound to miss its presence.

But there are two other cranes I can see soaring above Yorkville from time to time — those atop the Four Seasons Toronto towers currently under construction at the corner of Bay Street and Yorkville Avenue. Unfortunately, they’re largely blocked from view by the 46-floor Casa Condominium tower, but I do get an occasional glimpse as their booms swing toward the office buildings at Yonge & Bloor.

Below is a series of pics showing the Uptown’s crane during various stages of the condo tower’s construction — since October 2009 when I was first able to see the crane from my balcony, until its last day on the job this week.

August 6 2008: The Uptown’s crane stands only two storeys above street level during construction of the luxury condo tower’s foundation.

October 25 2009: My first glimpse of The Uptown’s crane, as the tip of the boom pokes above a nearby apartment building. The crane at left is atop The Uptown’s next-door neighbour, the Crystal Blu condominium tower.

November 2 2009: The Uptown’s crane still has a ways to go to catch up to the height of Crystal Blu’s and ultimately reach above the nearby towers.

December 21 2009: The Casa condo tower crane has been removed, Crystal Blu condos is climbing higher, and The Uptown’s crane is more visible on the skyline.

January 21 2010: The cranes on Crystal Blu and The Uptown Residences appear synchronized, both pointing in the same direction at the same angle

February 1 2010: The Casa condo tower nears completion, but The Uptown Residences tower still hasn’t come into view.

March 15 2010: The crane cab’s tinted windows stand out against the cloudy sky

March 29 2010: Now that the Crystal Blu condos crane has been removed, the Uptown Residences crane is the tallest in the Yorkville area

March 31 2010: The white boom looks bright against the blue morning sky

April 4 2010: The crane’s boom glows orange in the sunrise at 6 a.m. Easter Sunday

April 6 2010: White crane against a deep blue sky shortly before 8 a.m.

April 8 2010: The crane’s striking silhouette during a gorgeous sunset

May 10 2010: Another sunset silhouette of the crane and Yorkville towers

June 20 2010: Uptown Residences construction crane at sunset

June 20 2010: With its crane, the Uptown is the tallest structure in Yorkville

June 20 2010: The crane and another spectacular sunset

July 1 2010: The crane and nearby towers during an awesome Canada Day sunset

July 9 2010: The Uptown and its crane get upstaged by a fiery sky at sunset

July 17 2010: The crane and yet another brilliant July sunset

July 20 2010: The crane points to clouds glowing in another wonderful sunset

August 17 2010: The Yorkville skyline and another dramatic Toronto sunset

September 8 2010: Thick, dark storm clouds approach the tower

September 10 2010: The crane points straight up on a partly cloudy summer day

October 29 2010: Stormclouds advancing toward Yorkville

October 29 2010: The tower’s top southeast corner cladding cannot be installed until the construction crane has been removed from the roof.

November 28 2010: A storm front pulls over Yorkville like a thick woolly blanket

December 7 2010: A small red temporary crane has been assembled on the roof of The Uptown Residences tower to begin removing the larger crane

December 8 2010: The two cranes tower above the Yorkville neighbourhood

December 11 2010: The red crane pulls the last segment of the big white crane through the top of the Uptown Residences roof

December 15 2010: The big white crane has been completely removed

December 15 2010: A gaping hole in the wall and roof marks the spot where the large white crane had been positioned

December 21 2010: South view of the temporary red crane atop the tower

January 2 2011: Patching up the gaps where the white crane used to sit

January 18 2011: The Uptown’s rooftop cladding is nearly all in place

February 23 2011: North side of Uptown Residences (right) viewed from the roof of a Yorkville Avenue parking garage

March 2 2011: The temporary crane just days before its removal from the roof

March 8 2011: Uptown Residences condo shortly after the crane was removed

Infinity views and ÏCE foundations

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Three white cranes rise from the massive South Financial district (aka railway lands) excavation where the Infinity3 and ÏCE condo towers are being built.

From black asphalt to green courtyard canopy: What was once a vast asphalt-paved open-air parking area near the foot of York Street is gradually being transformed into an environmentally-conscious urban courtyard, covered by a 6,000-square-metre green canopy that will surround the base of two slender cylindrical skyscrapers — the 55- and 65-storey ÏCE Condominiums.

At the same time, what used to be a scruffy vacant lot right next door has become the building site for a new highrise condo complex, too — the 35-storey Infinity3 condos off Lower Simcoe Streets. The parking lot, which sat to the north of Lake Shore Blvd. and the Gardiner Expressway, used to be popular with people driving into the city to attend events at the nearby Air Canada Centre and Harbourfront. But it’s now one of downtown Toronto’s largest condo building excavations, where foundations for underground parking levels are in the early stages of construction.

Three construction cranes operate high above the enormous, L-shaped pit, while the construction entrance ramps off Grand Trunk Crescent and Lower Simcoe Street handle a steady stream of cement and dump truck traffic.

Below are photos I have taken from the CN Tower of the ÏCE and Infinity3 locations both before construction started, and during the early stages of site excavation. There’s also several pics I snapped at the side-by-side condo building site on a sunny day last week, along with some artistic renderings, from the ÏCE Condos website, of the two ÏCE towers and their courtyard canopy. Above left is a website rendering of the Infinity3 building under construction; it will be a new sibling to the two Infinity condo buildings that were constructed several years ago at the corner of Bremner Blvd. and Lower Simcoe Street.

ÏCE Condos is a project by Lanterra Developments and Cadillac Fairview; the buildings were designed by Peter Clewes of Toronto’s architectsAlliance. Infinity3 is a project of The Conservatory Group. The Infinity 3 website doesn’t name the project architects; however, the E.I. Richmond Architects Ltd. website includes the Infinity towers in its portfolio. Another rendering of the Infinity3 complex can be viewed on that site.

September 22 2008: CN Tower view of the two Infinity condo buildings and the site for the Infinity3 project — a vacant lot off Lower Simcoe Street

September 22 2008: A CN Tower view of the parking lot that is now an excavation for the two ÏCE Condos skyscrapers. The brown structure in the upper left corner is the foundation for the ÏCE Condos sales office being set up at the time.

September 22 2008: CN Tower view of the Infinity3 condo site off Lower Simcoe Street; the little square building was the Infinity3 condo sales centre.

November 2 2010: CN Tower view of substantial excavation progress at the construction sites for the ÏCE Condos and Infinity3 Condos

November 2 2010: ÏCE Condos and Infinity3 Condos site excavation progress

February 18 2011: The two existing Infinity condo buildings, left, overlook the deep Infinity3 excavation pit to their south.

February 18 2011: Worksite viewed from Lower Simcoe Street

February 18 2011: Eastward view of the Infinity3 and ICE Condos worksites

Infinity3 condo construction site entrance off Lower Simcoe Street

Infinity3 and ICE Condos foundations taking shape

A man standing outside the beige construction crew trailer (top center) supervises the ÏCE Condos building activity at the bottom of the pit

A closer look at the foundation forms taking shape in the pit

One of the construction crew building the condo’s underground levels

Construction workers at the bottom of the deep ÏCE Condos excavation

Surveyors at work near the construction entrance to the ÏCE Condos excavation. The building in the background is the new Maple Leaf Square complex.

The surveyors working above the ÏCE Condos excavation

ÏCE condos website rendering of the two condominium skyscrapers

ÏCE condos website rendering of the green canopy for the condo courtyard

The ÏCE condo towers depicted in an animated video on the project website

Website video suggests how the ÏCE towers might appear on the skyline

City Scene: Condos and cranes at Concord CityPlace

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Skyscrapers keep rising at the massive CityPlace district west of the CN Tower

Tracking progress: Condo towers and construction cranes greet visitors arriving in downtown Toronto by GO Train or Via Rail. As the trains slow down for their arrival at Union Station, they pass the steadily expanding Concord CityPlace development on the south side of the tracks. This was the Bathurst Street Bridge view of CityPlace on the afternoon of January 14.

Tracking Downtown Toronto's Amazing
Building Boom.

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Tracking Downtown Toronto's Amazing Building Boom.

Tag Archives: construction cranes

2nd crane installed at WC Hospital building site

City Scenes: Snowy Bay Street building sites

City Scene: Criss-crossed construction cranes

Crane removed from Uptown Residences roof

Infinity views and ÏCE foundations

City Scene: Condos and cranes at Concord CityPlace

Tracking Downtown Toronto's AmazingBuilding Boom.

Tracking Downtown Toronto's Amazing
Building Boom.