Above is a link to my February 2013 Flickr album of building and construction photos I shot during walks in the downtown area. Click once on the image to view a small-format slideshow of the pictures, or click twice to access the album directly on Flickr and see full-size photos and captions.
This photo by Colin Gruchy captures the great view from an office on the 41st floor of First Canadian Place on September 20 2012. Click on the photo to view a larger-size image.
Great view: It’s a good thing I don’t work on a high floor in an office tower in the downtown core — I would probably spend practically all of my time looking at buildings and watching construction activity. Especially if I sat near a window with a north view like the one in the photo above that Colin Gruchy shot two days ago.
It’s a great vantage point for keeping track of at least four major construction projects currently underway in the downtown core: the Nathan Phillips Square revitalization at City Hall; the MaRS Centre Phase 2 tower at College Street and University Avenue (slightly visible to the upper left of City Hall’s west tower); the Motion on Bay Street apartment highrise directly behind City Hall’s east tower; and the Aura condo skyscraper to the northeast of that, at Yonge & Gerrard. And in just a couple of years’ time, construction of the 54-storey INDX condominium tower, which will be built on a site bounded by Richmond, Sheppard and Temperance Streets, will dominate the foreground of this particular view.
Got a good Toronto construction or building photo you’d like to share? Drop me a line at: [email protected]
September 7 2012: A view of the Motion on Bay Street rental apartment highrise from atop the podium green roof at Toronto City Hall to the south
September 7 2012: A look up the tower’s east side, from Bay Street…
… and a view of Motion from the northwest, along Dundas Street
Photo update: Construction of the Motion on Bay Street rental apartment highrise has passed 20 storeys, on its way to a final floor count of 29.
A project of Concert Properties, the 463-unit building is scheduled for completion next spring.
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August 11 2012: Construction of the 29-storey Motion on Bay rental apartment building at Bay & Dundas Streets has reached 17 floors, with 12 more to go
Halfway there: If some of the emails I receive are a reliable indication, there’s a lot of people in Toronto who think that the Motion on Bay Street building currently under construction at Bay & Dundas Streets is going to be “yet another condo,” to borrow the words of one correspondent. After I published some construction photos on May 5, I received several private messages from people requesting information about availability and purchase prices for 1- and 2-bedroom “condos” in the building. (For some reason, a lot of people also assume I’m a condo sales rep.) With this update post, I’m already bracing for another series of similar inquiries.
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May 5 2012: Construction workers were busy moving building forms today to prepare to build the 6th level of the Motion rental highrise
May 4 2012: The building will rise 29 storeys at the SW corner of Bay and Dundas Streets, and contain 463 units plus street-level retail shops
Form fitting: The Motion rental highrise at Bay & Dundas Streets reached a new level today, as crews repositioned building forms to prepare for construction of the 6th floor of what will ultimately be a 29-storey tower.
Toronto Police closed Bay Street to traffic for the length of the building site this afternoon while the construction crane hoisted forms from the building’s fifth level, and repositioned them directly above.
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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: 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
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.
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)
Another view of Motion on Bay Street apartment site on September 26 2008
Motion on Bay Street apartment site fenced off in September 29 2010
Motion on Bay Street apartment site fenced off in September 29 2010
Pile drilling equipment operating on site November 23 2010
Hoarding along Bay Street on November 23 2010
Site viewed from the northeast corner of Bay & Dundas on November 23 2010
Motion on Bay signs on hoarding along Dundas Street on November 23 2010
Motion on Bay Street signs on Dundas Street hoardings November 23 2010
Motion on Bay Street signs along Dundas Street on November 23 2010
Dundas Street view towards Motion on Bay site November 23 2010
Dundas Street view towards Motion on Bay site November 23 2010
Bay Street view of the Motion on Bay site (left) on January 8 2011
Bay Street view of the Motion on Bay site on January 8 2011
Yellow excavator digging away on January 8 2011
Excavation activity continuing on January 14 2011