Tag Archives: Cresford

Days numbered for former Bistro 990 building as demolition crews prep site for new condo

1000 Bay Condos

January 19 2013: The former Bistro 990 restaurant building — once a popular Toronto International Film Festival hangout for celebrities and Hollywood movie industry moguls — is being prepared for demolition to make way for construction of a condo highrise

 

 1000 Bay Street Condos location

This development proposal sign, seen on the site one year ago, describes the 32-storey condo tower that Cresford Developments will construct on the property

 

1Thousand Bay condos Toronto

This illustration, from the Cresford website, depicts how the 1Thousand Bay building will look. The condo was designed by Toronto’s architectsAlliance.

 

Bye bye bistro: The building that housed the once-famous Bistro 990 restaurant for nearly a quarter of a century will disappear from the Bay Street landscape soon to make way for construction of the 1Thousand Bay condo tower.

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Condo tower building sites squeezing traffic on construction-weary Charles Street East

Construction hoarding outside 42 & 45 Charles Street East  Toronto

September 1 2012 : One-way Charles Street squeezes into a single narrow lane while hoarding and security fences cramp the already-narrow sidewalks along the facing condo construction sites for ChazYorkville, left, and Casa 2 right

 

45 Charles Street East Toronto

September 1 2012: Hoarding has surrounded the ChazYorkville site at 45 Charles East since last fall, when demolition started on a 45-year-old, 8-storey Modernist-style office building that formerly occupied the property  …

 

ChazYorkville condo tower excavation

… now the site of a large excavation that gets deeper each day

 

 42 Charles Street East Toronto

August 31 2012: Hoarding was installed on the north sidewalk, along the front of the office building at 42 Charles, in late August …

 

42 Charles Street East Toronto

… where the 9-storey brick building, once administrative offices for the YMCA, will be demolished to make room for the 56-storey Casa 2 Condominiums

 

Near 42 and 45 Charles Street East Toronto

August 31 2012: Cars try to squeeze past a dump truck waiting its turn to enter the ChazYorkville site and pick up a load of soil from the excavation

 

Charles Street East Toronto

August 31 2012: Motorists and pedestrians alike will face disruption and traffic congestion on this block of Charles Street for at least the next three to four years …

 

Charles Street postal station February 26 2012

… and possibly much longer, if Canada Post sells Postal Station F at 50 Charles East, right next door to the Casa 2 site, for residential highrise redevelopment

 

Tight squeeze: Residents on and near the block of Charles Street between Church & Yonge Streets have reluctantly resigned themselves to at least four more years of dirt, dust, noise and traffic congestion, courtesy of two condo tower construction sites practically within whispering distance of each other on opposite sides of the street.

Construction of the 47-storey ChazYorkville condo tower commenced last fall when demolition crews destroyed a Modernist-style office building that had occupied 45 Charles for more than four decades. Foundation shoring and drilling work started in the spring, and excavation activity has been underway since May. 

The same process is set to repeat itself directly across the street where hoarding was installed in late August along the public sidewalk in front of 42 Charles. Demolition of the 9-storey brick office building that presently stands on the site will start this fall, followed by shoring and excavation for the 56-floor Casa 2 Condominiums tower.

 

 

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Corner Glass: Casa condos catch the morning sun

Casa condominium Toronto

January 9 2012: Morning sunshine glints off windows on the southeast corner of the Casa Condominium near Yonge & Bloor Streets. The 46-storey tower at 33 Charles Street East was designed by architectsAlliance and built by Cresford.

 

Casa condominium Toronto

Excavation getting deeper for Lofts 399 condos

Lofts 399 condos

Website rendering of Lofts 399 condo currently under construction


Lofts 399 condos

Lofts 399 excavation activity on February 17 2011


Digging away: Looks like a condo building is slowly but surely getting constructed, at last, at 399 Adelaide Street West.

A condo project called Mode Lofts originally had been planned and sold for the site west of Spadina Avenue, but never materialized. Mode ultimately got cancelled, but Cresford Developments resurrected plans for a loft project on the same location, and now there’s finally a big hole in the ground. 

Now named Lofts 399, the 10-storey building will have 173 units. It will become a new neighbour to the two Quad Lofts buildings that will flank its east and west sides, as well as the Victory condos building which is nearing completion to its immediate south.

Once Lofts 399 has finished construction, it will enclose a landscaped contemporary square between the four condo buildings — the so-called “Hidden Garden” pictured on the Lofts 399 website.

Below are several photos I took Thursday of the ongoing excavation work at the project site.

 

Lofts 399 condos

The two Quad Lofts buildings bookend the Lofts 399 excavation while Victory Condos on King St., nearing the end of construction, sits to the southeast.


Lofts 399 condos

Quad Lofts, left, and Victory condos behind the excavation site


Lofts 399 condos

Lofts 399 excavation viewed from the east side of the property


Lofts 399 condos

The construction vehicle ramp from Adelaide Street into the pit


Lofts 399 condos

Only three or four construction workers were on site


Lofts 399 condos

Excavator digging at southwest corner of the pit


Lofts 399 condos

The pit is more than two levels deep so far


Lofts 399 condos

One worker watches the backhoe dig


Lofts 399 condos

Making the mucky earth move