Tag Archives: Pace Condos

A peek at the Pace Condos construction site

Pace Condos

December 6 2013: A view of the construction site for Pace Condos, located at the southwest corner of Jarvis & Dundas Streets

 

Approaching grade: Construction continues on the underground parking levels for the Pace Condos tower at the southwest corner of Jarvis and Dundas Streets in east downtown.

But in just a few weeks’ time, construction will reach grade and work will begin on the building’s 6-storey podium — the base for a 36-storey tower that will transform the east downtown skyline.

The steady approach to street level at means that, throughout 2014, neighbours and passersby will get a clear view of construction progress as the tower climbs skyward, eventually topping off with 42 residential floors. For now, pedestrians can catch a partially-obscured glimpse of building activity if they peek through a chainlink fence next to the sidewalk at the corner of Jarvis & Dundas.

A project of Great Gulf, Pace Condos was designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects. Residents of the 384-unit building will enjoy extensive recreational and fitness amenities on the tower’s 7th floor, including access to an outdoor swimming pool and a landscaped garden on the podium roof. The building will have more than 4,500 square feet of retail space at ground level.

Below is another photo of work on the underground parking levels, as well as an artistic rendering of the building.

 

Pace Condos

December 10 2013: Once two more underground parking levels have been completed, work on the 42-storey tower will begin to climb above street level.

 

 

Pace Condos

This illustration of the Pace Condos building appeared on a development proposal sign the City posted on the project site nearly three years ago. The tower was designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects.

 

Winter building pics: March 2013

 My March 2013 album on Flickr features more than 500 photos showing dozens of downtown construction projects and building sites. Click once on the image above to view a small-format slideshow of the pictures, or click twice to access the actual album where you can view individual full-size photos with captions.

 

 

Frozen fingers: It’s only a few days into spring and I’m still sorting through hundreds of building and construction photos I took during the winter. What has struck me the most is how gloomy and grey the city looked most of the time. Sunny, clear days were few and far between — and when they came, it was usually too bitterly cold and windy for me to risk freezing my fingers by wandering around with my camera.

I did manage a few long photo walks, though, and have been gradually posting the pics in albums on thetorontoblog.com’s Flickr photostream.  Above is a link to my fourth winter photo album, March 2013.

 

 

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Winter building pics: December 2012

Above is a link to my December 2012 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 and see full-size photos and captions.

 

Construction underway on completely sold-out Pace condo tower project at Dundas & Jarvis

Pace Condos

December  13 2012: “Sold Out” signs dominate the hoarding around the Pace Condos construction site on the southwest corner of Dundas and Jarvis Streets

 

Pace Condos

December 13 2012: A foundation shoring machine towers above the hoarding along the Dundas Street sidewalk next to the Pace Condos site

 

Sales success: Construction is in full swing on a 42-storey condo tower development that could help revitalize a scruffy southeast downtown neighbourhood that is home to dozens of shelters and social service agencies serving one of the country’s largest low-income communities.

Shoring and foundation drilling machines have been stirring up dust at the southwest corner of Dundas and Jarvis Streets, where Pace Condos will gradually climb skyward over the next three years. The Great Gulf project at 155 Dundas East — which was approved by Toronto City Council just over one year ago — has been a tremendous sales success for the developer. The 384-unit building is completely “sold out,” according to bold signage posted on sidewalk hoarding along the Dundas and Jarvis perimeters of the construction site.

 

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Demolition of former retail plaza underway at Jarvis/Dundas site for 46-storey Pace condo tower

PACE Condos site

July 1 2011: A view of the southwest corner of Jarvis and Dundas Streets …

 

PACE Condos site at Dundas and Jarvis Streets

…  where half of the small strip plaza that once occupied the site has been demolished to make way for construction of the 46-storey Pace Condos tower

 

Pace Condos site at Dundas & Jarvis

March 22 2011: This is what the plaza looked like before demolition started

 

 

Strong sales: There isn’t much left of the small retail plaza that formerly sat at the southwest corner of Dundas and Jarvis Streets, home to a convenience store, coin laundry and restaurants until late last year. This week, a demolition machine began to destroy the single-storey structures that used to occupy the property on which developer Great Gulf Homes plans to construct Pace Condos. According to the rezoning application that Great Gulf filed with the city in March, the proposed 46-storey tower will have a 10-storey podium and five underground levels, and will contain 417 condominium suites. The Pace Condos website indicates that 27 different floor plans are available for units ranging from small studios to 1- and 2-bedroom apartments, along with “family suites” offering 3, 3.5 or 4 bedrooms. Design-wise, Pace Condos will be “a paragon of architectural brilliance,” the website gushes. “Pace is a shimmering glass tower artfully placed on a podium comprised of dark charcoal-coloured bricks. This is urban elegance at its best. This is eye-catching, eye candy design the likes of which the city has never seen,” it adds. Curiously, the website doesn’t credit Toronto’s Diamond + Schmitt Architects, the firm behind the tower design it lauds so highly, although it does mention that “custom kitchens” will be designed by Ciccone Simone.

When I first wrote about the Pace Condos project in my March 22 2011 post, I noted that the building location is a seedy area on the edge of one of Canada’s poorest residential districts. While I personally wouldn’t want to live in the neighbourhood, nor would any of the friends with whom I have discussed the condo project, I did acknowledge that Great Gulf would probably find plenty of eager buyers willing to pay to live there. It looks like that has indeed been the case: According to the project website, 14 of the condo’s 27 floorplans have already sold out.

Below is a screenshot — from the Pace Condos website — showing how the proposed tower will look, along with several more photos I took today of demolition progress on the building site.

 

architectural illustration of the Pace Condos tower

From the Pace Condos website, an architectural illustration of the glass tower and its 10-storey dark charcoal-coloured brick podium

 

Pace Condo tower site at Dundas & Jarvis

July 1 2011: A view of the Pace Condos site from outside the Hilton Garden Inn Toronto/City Centre on the northeast corner of Dundas & Jarvis

 

Pace Condo tower location at Dundas & Jarvis Streets Toronto

July 1 2011: The former convenience store building has been reduced to rubble

 

Pace Condo tower location at Dundas & Jarvis Streets Toronto

July 1 2011: Only the south wall of the former retail businesses is left standing

 

Pace Condo tower location at Dundas and Jarvis Streets Toronto

July 1 2011: The former coin laundry building is partially demolished

 

Pace Condo tower location at Dundas and Jarvis Streets Toronto

July 1 2011: A view of the Pace Condos site from the north side of Dundas Street. The Grand Hotel & Suites Toronto is the tower at left, while the highrise at right rear is a condominium; both are located on Jarvis Street just south of Dundas.

 

Pace Condo tower location at Dundas and Jarvis Toronto

July 1 2011: Another view of the site from the north side of Dundas Street

 

Pace Condo tower location at Dundas and Jarvis Streets in Toronto

July 1 2011: Demolition will resume after the Canada Day holiday weekend

 

Pace Condo tower location at Dundas and Jarvis STreets Toronto

July 1 2011: A view of the site from Jarvis Street, looking west

 

 

Community meeting tonight will review plan for 46-storey Pace Condos tower at Dundas & Jarvis

Pace Condos at Dundas and Jarvis

Great Gulf Homes is proposing a 46-storey condo tower for this site at the SW corner of Dundas and Jarvis Streets, seen here on March 22 2011.

 

Public feedback: A community consultation meeting this evening will give city residents the opportunity to voice their views about a Toronto developer’s proposal to build a 46-storey condo tower at the southwest corner of Dundas and Jarvis Streets. The meeting about Pace Condos, scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at Metropolitan United Church, was recommended in a March 22 2011 preliminary report by the city’s Planning Division.

Great Gulf Homes is proposing a 46-storey mixed-use building for the corner site, which includes municipal addresses at 200 Jarvis Street and 155 – 163 Dundas Street East. The tower would have five underground levels and a 10-storey podium, and would contain 417 residential units in studio, 1-bedroom, 1-bedroom + den, 2-bedroom and 2-bedroom + den configurations. Prices start at $209,990.

An article on the Great Gulf website claims that Pace Condos “offers unbeatable downtown Toronto value in new condo living,” and raves that its prime location — which is just a “leisurely pace” from leading downtown attractions and key city transit services — will be ideal for people seeking “a new urban lifestyle.” The article further boasts that the condo building itself will be “a paragon of architectural brilliance. This shimmering, sleek and streamlined glass tower designed by Diamond + Schmitt Architects Inc. will artfully rise from a podium comprised of dark charcoal-coloured bricks. Pace will embody urban elegance at its best — and will define a new generation of urban elegance. Landscaping by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg will frame the building in startling greenery and colour.”

What the article doesn’t describe is the gritty neighbourhood; as I mentioned in a March 22 2011 post, the Pace Condos location is on the edge of one of the poorest residential areas in the city, if not the entire country. Within mere minutes’ walking distance are dozens of hostels, homeless shelters, subsidized housing apartments, soup kitchens and social service agencies for the poor. From my experience, it has been difficult to walk past the Dundas/Jarvis intersection, or along nearby streets, without encountering numerous panhandlers, street people, and a slew of sketchy people openly selling and doing drugs or drinking alcohol. Despite the neighbourhood’s seedy character, the condo tower proposal has generated tremendous local interest — from excited potential buyers, from citizens who think Pace could kickstart wider urban renewal in the immediate area, and from nearby residents who are alarmed by the height and size of the building that could soon become their new neighbour.

Given wide interest in Pace Condos, tonight’s meeting could attract a large turnout and spark colourful discussion, both positive and negative.  I’m keen to hear if the Pace Condos proposal generates reactions similar to those expressed at other public meetings I have attended recently. A community consultation for a massive condo project planned for the St James Town area drew overwhelmingly negative feedback from the audience, while a Jarvis Street resident read an emotional and strongly-worded three-minute speech blasting the Pace Condo proposal at another public meeting about proposed guidelines for tall buildings in the downtown area. Unfortunately, I can’t attend the meeting, but I will continue to track further developments.

 

Pace Condos marketing billboard

Great Gulf Homes plans 46-storey condo tower for corner in sketchy Dundas-Jarvis neighbourhood

Pace Condos site at Dundas and Jarvis

Developer Great Gulf Homes has acquired this property at the southwest corner of Dundas and Jarvis Streets for its proposed 46-storey Pace Condos tower

 

Pace Condos billboard at Dundas and Jarvis Streets

On-site promotional billboard for the Pace Condos tower

 

Seedy site: I had been wondering when a developer was going to announce plans to build a condo tower at the seedy southwest corner of Dundas and Jarvis Streets. It’s not a nice neighbourhood by any stretch of the imagination, but real estate is all about location and that’s one of the few redeeming features for this prime piece of downtown property just a short walk from the Toronto Eaton Centre and the Yonge subway line. Late last year I noticed that the three businesses in the small commercial plaza on the corner had been closed and their windows papered over. I kept waiting to hear word about a development proposal for the property, but didn’t see any signs on the site in either January or February. But when I passed by the corner just over a week ago, and saw that chainlink fencing had been erected around the plaza, I knew an announcement was imminent. On March 14, it happened: prominent Toronto condo developer GreatGulf Homes filed a rezoning application with the City, proposing to build a 46-storey condo tower with 417 suites, five levels of underground parking and a 10-storey podium with street-level retail space. A billboard promoting Pace Condos — “downtown tower suites from the low $200s” — promptly went up on the corner where it’s certain to catch the attention of motorists driving along busy Jarvis Street on their way to and from the Financial District.

When I told some friends earlier this winter that I suspected a condo would be built on the site, they looked incredulous and said: “No way! Who the hell would want to live there?” Obviously, Great Gulf is confident they can find 417 potential buyers, and I’m sure they’ve done their research. After all, they know their stuff: they’re the company behind several of downtown Toronto’s hottest condo developments.  Their X Condominium tower only eight blocks north of the Pace Condos site was a huge hit with buyers, and two other condo towers Great Gulf is currently constructing — X2 Condos at Jarvis & Charles, and Charlie condos on King Street West in the Entertainment District — were enormously successful, too. One Bloor Condos is destined to achieve similar stellar sales; construction of that tower is expected to commence later this year at Yonge and Bloor Streets.

Still, it’s fair to say that the area around the Pace Condos site is a helluva lot less desirable than the locations of GreatGulf’s other projects. Dundas & Jarvis sits on the periphery of one of the poorest residential areas in all of Canada, a vast downtown district with one of the country’s largest concentrations of homeless people and residents earning poverty-level incomes or collecting social assistance — people who have no hope of ever being able to live at Pace Condos or in a condo anywhere, for that matter. Meanwhile, if Pace Condos does get built, anyone who buys an east-facing unit will have views overlooking dozens of rooming houses, homeless shelters, government-subsidized apartments and social service agencies — all just a short stroll from their front door. And as the Toronto Star pointed out in a photo gallery on March 18, the epicentre of the city’s worst area for overall crime is the intersection of Dundas and Sherbourne Streets, just two blocks east. While I was taking photos on Dundas Street this afternoon, a young black man approached me. “Make sure you take pictures showing this place like it really is — me standing here drinking from a bottle of booze in a paper bag in broad daylight, those guys over on that corner dealing crack cocaine, all those homeless people over there and the guys doing drugs down there,” he told me, pointing at each corner of the Dundas-Jarvis intersection before taking a long drink from his bottle. He, along with all the street people who kept staring at me or asking for spare change, made me wonder why anyone would want to pay $200,000+ to buy a condo there. Until he added: “And make sure you take pictures of how everything looks like now so you can remember it because, in a few years, there’s probably gonna be lots of new buildings all around here. This is gonna be a good place to live. It’s not always gonna look like this.”

Maybe he’s right — maybe things are finally starting to look up for this down-on-hard-times district. There’s already several condo buildings close by, including the popular and pricey Merchandise Lofts, as well as two hotels — with a third hotel and more condos in the works. Right across the street, the Ontario government is retrofitting and modernizing the massive building at 222 Jarvis Street into a new workplace for the Ontario Public Service. And the rapidly-growing Ryerson University campus is just a block away. Could the arrival of Pace Condos herald a turn-around for this sketchy streetcorner? We’ll have to wait a few years to see. In the meantime, here’s some photos showing the Pace Condos site and its immediate neighbours as they look now.

 

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace Condos tower

January 3 2011: Looking west at the small plaza at Dundas & Jarvis Streets

 

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace Condos tower

January 3 2011: The office towers of the Financial District are only blocks away

 

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace Condos tower

February 18 2011: The Eaton Centre is just a 10-minute walk west

 

proposed location for the Pace Condos tower

March 22 2011: Looking south on Jarvis Street toward the Pace Condos site. If built, Pace would obstruct this view of the 45-storey Spire condo tower on Lombard Street, visible in the center of the photograph.

 

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace Condos tower

March 22 2011: Pace Condos site seen from northeast corner of Dundas & Jarvis

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace Condos tower

Commercial tenants of this plaza — including a convenience store, two restaurants and a coin-operated laundry facility– closed up shop months ago. The parking lot was fenced off just within the past 10 days.

 

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace Condos tower

The buildings to the west and southwest include luxury condos, rental apartments, co-op apartments and government-subsidized rental accommodation

 

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace Condos tower

South view of the Pace Condos site from the opposite side of Dundas St. The brown brick building is 192 Jarvis, a 14-storey condominium built in 1985.

 

Pace Condos marketing billboard

A billboard advertises Pace Condos to passersby on Dundas and Jarvis Streets

 

192 Jarvis Street condo building

The 192 Jarvis condo rises above the fenced-off plaza on Dundas Street

 

Dundas-Jarvis site for proposed Pace condos tower

A view of the exterior of two of the plaza’s former commercial tenants

 

the site for the proposed Pace Condos tower

These now-vacant properties — ICITS computer training at 155 Dundas East, New Moon Bar at 157 Dundas East, and Palmers West Indian Restaurant at 159 Dundas East — are all part of the site for the proposed Pace Condos tower

 

Vacant properties next to the Pace Condo towers site

The Grand Hotel on Jarvis Street and the 192 Jarvis condominium building sit to the south and southeast of the site of the proposed Pace Condos tower

 

Vacant properties next to the Pace Condo towers site

If approved by City Hall, Pace Condos would stand three times taller than these two buildings; it would be the highest tower in the neighbourhood

Ho Lee Chow and Grand Hotel on Jarvis Street

The Ho-Lee-Chow takeout restaurant on the southeast corner of Dundas & Jarvis; the Grand Hotel is situated a few doors south at 225 Jarvis Street

 

Hilton Garden Inn on northeast corner of Dundas & Jarvis

The Hilton Garden Inn on the northeast corner of Dundas & Jarvis. Years ago, before it was converted into a hotel, this building housed offices of the federal unemployment insurance department

 

222 Jarvis across the street from proposed Pace Condos site

222 Jarvis sits across the street from the Pace Condos site, directly to the north. At one time the headquarters for Sears Canada, the building is being retrofitted and modernized as offices for the Ontario Public Service

 

Mutual Street Deli

Mutual Street Deli on the north side of Dundas St. across from Pace Condos