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Toronto Star makes real estate and numbers fun with an illustrated feature on city condo living

Toronto condo towers (Image: picturenarrative from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)

In a flurry of pie charts, bar graphs and cartoons this past weekend, the Toronto Star published its first instalment of Vertical Toronto, a visual series about condo life in the city. And, yes, we learned a thing or two. Turns out 60 per cent of Toronto households live in apartments—379,055 in high-rises, 205,825 closer to the ground. Remember when we reported that Toronto’s condo-building blitz is crushing New York City and Mexico City? The Star reveals the numbers behind completed condos: while T.O. (1,879) is far, far behind NYC (5,967), Hogtown is still ahead of every other city in North America. But the most interesting factoid comes from a sidebar about the sculptures outside city apartment towers: it seems developers aren’t actually enthused patrons of the arts. Section 37 of the Planning Act allows them to petition for a higher or denser build if they make a generous donation to a “community benefit,” like parks, community centres, heritage sites or public art installations. Since 1998, 130 works have been funded this way. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

The Hype

Curtain Call

November 17, 2011 | 4:31 pm

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Blythe Wilson is leaving Toronto to star in a Broadway production of Mary Poppins

Blythe Wilson will be saying farewell to the Princess of Wales Theatre. Wilson, who portrays Mrs. Banks in the stage production of Mary Poppins in Toronto, has been called to Broadway to take over the same role. Sadly, she’s the only performer from the 12-member cast who has been tapped, and at last Saturday’s opening night party, there were tears (some of joy and, presumably, some of jealousy—it is Broadway, after all) because she’s be leaving on Monday. (Her husband and fellow Mary Poppins castmate Mark Harapiak will stay behind). After cutting her teeth at both the Stratford and Shaw festivals, it’s about time she lived out her dream, and the dream of every actor who has ever struggled to make it big in Toronto. Well, she’s big, and now Broadway has her (at least for the time being).

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The Informer

To Market, To Market

November 17, 2011 | 4:30 pm

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Ontario developer risks $15 billion taking the lead in monumental Manhattan transformation

The Manhattan site where an Ontario developer is proposing to build 5,000 new apartments (Image: Roblawol)

Manhattan Island was long thought to be fully built out, but apparently Canada’s largest real estate developer aims to conjure an entire neighbourhood on top of a 26-acre rail yard nonetheless. Oxford Properties—the real estate arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System—has an ambitious vision of 5,000 new apartments, but it will first need to construct a $1.5 billion platform above the Hudson train yards in the island’s west end. It’s a Herculean task: New York City hasn’t seen such a transformation in over 100 years, when a similar platform was erected over Park Avenue and Grand Central Station. Oxford only took charge of the $15 billion project after some of the biggest names in U.S. real estate and finance pulled out, including Goldman Sachs and Tishman Speyer. The recession has bruised the American real estate sector to the degree that many companies can’t stomach the risk involved—especially since thousands of layoffs have left plenty of free office space in New York. The modest Canadians, however, still have the cash and cojones for such ventures. Construction starts next year, and hopefully the gamble pays off; the fund that sustains hundreds of thousands of Canadian pensions depends on Oxford’s success. Read the entire story [The Globe and Mail] »

The Informer

The New Normal

November 15, 2011 | 11:09 am

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Occupy Wall Street is given the boot; Rob Ford follows suit by serving Occupy Toronto an eviction notice

Eviction notice from the City of Toronto (Image: Kevin Hamilton)

The city said it would make its move on Occupy Toronto sometime this week, and Rob Ford offered yesterday that the protesters at St. James Park would be given notice “soon.” But with the PR motive for playing nice with the protesters essentially evaporated—after other Canadian cities cleared out their own Occupy movements and, most importantly, New York City forced Occupy Wall Street protesters out of Zuccotti Park early this morning—the city decided the time had arrived to serve Occupy Toronto with an eviction notice of its own. Back in New York, there are already reports that Wall Street protesters will be allowed back into the park (albeit without tents and their belongings). But we’re guessing the last thing Ford wants is for the Toronto eviction to be temporary. Follow Toronto Now for ongoing coverage [Toronto Star] »

The Hype

From the Print Edition

November 10, 2011 | 2:05 pm

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Spotlight: Actress Blythe Wilson brings brassiness and a big voice to Mary Poppins at the Princess of Wales Theatre

Blythe Wilson

By Emily Landau | Photography by Vanessa Heins

In a world of instant stars and stunt casting, Blythe Wilson is a throwback to the brassy belters and hoofers of theatre’s golden era. Behind her polished, aristocratic veneer—all long limbs and stately grace—lies a big, show-stopping voice and an astonishing versatility. Wilson has been a stalwart in the Toronto scene for the better part of two decades, lending her substantial stage presence to several of the Broadway bel canto roles. She stole the show (from Colm Feore, no less) as hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Nancy in Stratford’s 2006 production of Oliver! The following season, she brought a rare depth to lovestruck farm girl Laurey Williams—a part not known for its complexity—in Oklahoma! She even vetoed a stand-in dancer for the show’s famous dream ballet, performing it herself.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 9, 2011 | 8:45 am

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The Loaded List: we catalogue the astronomical salaries of Toronto’s ruling class

The Loaded List
It’s not particularly polite to ask rich people what they earn. But tact is overrated, and we wanted to know, so we asked anyway. When they told us to get lost, we got sneaky. We dug up disclosure documents, annual reports and the tax filings of charitable organizations. When those trails went dry, we surveyed industry insiders who know what other people make—headhunters and consultants and analysts and colleagues—and asked for an educated guess. After hundreds of calls and emails and deep-throat meetings in dark alleys, we phoned the high earners back and told them what we found. Again, with feeling, they told us to piss off.

What follows is our shamelessly gawking, as-precise-as-possible examination of the highest-paid people in the city’s top industries. When the information was available, we included bonuses and perks and, in some cases, exercised stock options. Our findings verified that a high earner in finance is almost always on a different plane (a private jet, usually) than a high earner in, for example, the lowly arts. One major discovery: Heather Reisman took a pay cut. One truth reconfirmed: no matter how rich you are, there’s always someone who makes a helluva lot more.

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VIEW BY INDUSTRY » GOLD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT FUND MANAGERS SPORTS SHOP OWNERS MEDIA LANDLORDS BAY STREET PUBLIC SERVANTS

VIEW BY SALARY » SEE 69 OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE CITY’S TOP INDUSTRIES, SORTED BY SALARY FROM HIGHEST TO LOWEST

The Informer

From the Print Edition

November 7, 2011 | 2:05 pm

32 Comments

Destination Munkistan: A look at Peter Munk’s new Adriatic playground for the super-rich

The latest project of the gold magnate Peter Munk is a seaside resort and tax haven for fellow billionaires in the post-Soviet backwater of Tivat, Montenegro. A delirious tour of a world of champagne-drenched parties, supersize yachts and the recession-proof Ultra-High Net Worth Individual
By Leah McLaren

Captain Fantastic: Peter Munk on his 40-metre yacht, the Golden Eagle, which has a full-time staff of five. (Image: Jim Ross)

There are birthday parties, and then there was Nathaniel Rothschild’s party this past July. The financier, scion of the prominent banking family and future baron was turning 40 and spent £1 million on the weekend-long extravaganza. The venue: Porto Montenegro, a newly developed luxury resort and marina in the Montenegrin coastal town of Tivat, on the southeast side of the Adriatic Sea. It was the sort of gathering that marks the end of an era or the birth of an empire—and in a way, for Europe’s youngest and smallest democracy, it was both.

Four hundred guests arrived at the village airport on private jets or stepped off the fleet of super-yachts that washed ashore from the world’s most glamorous tax havens—the Grenadines, Gibraltar, Grand Cayman. The attendees were described in the Guardian society pages as “200 ugly rich people and their poorer but more attractive partners,” or, as one guest more generously put it, “plutocrats and the women who love them.” A number of the partiers were so fantastically rich they could bankroll whole armies (which the birthday boy’s family, in its heyday, once did): Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (who arrived on his £70-million yacht, the Queen K); the wealthy Egyptian Sawiris family (who have embarked on their own Montenegrin development nearby); King Leruo Molotlegi, ruler of a tiny, platinum-rich part of South Africa, who hit the dance floor in a fabulous dashiki; British politician Lord Peter Mandelson; Jimmy Choo honcho Tamara Mellon; the historian Niall Ferguson and his Dutch-Somali partner, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist critic of Islam. There was a healthy smattering of European royalty, as well as members of the Guinness and Goldsmith clans.

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The Informer

Political Whoas

October 26, 2011 | 12:05 pm

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Former business associate of Kiss’s Gene Simmons is now collecting Toronto’s garbage

Kiss bass player Gene Simmons has made it into the coverage of Rob Ford’s push for garbage privatization (it’s about time, right?). Allow us to explain: the Globe and Mail has a story on the background of Green For Life Environmental, the firm that will now be hauling Toronto’s trash between Yonge Street and the Humber River. Apparently, company president Patrick Dovigi once sat on the board of “a YouTube music and celebrity channel fronted by Mr. Simmons” (it eventually company went bankrupt). The Globe also reports that Dovigi served as the president of Waste Excellence, a company embroiled in a dispute with the City of Vaughan over, among other things, bounced checks. (For his part, Dovigi says he left the company before the dispute.) And there’s more! GFL’s managing partner started his own trash collection company, landed a contract in New York, then threatened to stop serving unprofitable routes. Now, the Globe hasn’t unearthed a massive scandal—but there does appear to be reason for pause here. After all, Rob Ford has professed a rabid devotion to customer service. It seems that vetting GFL a little more closely might have been a good place to start. Read the entire story [Globe and Mail] »

The Informer

Cityscape

October 24, 2011 | 4:35 pm

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Joel Richardson’s city-authorized mural in the Junction is restored after city-authorized destruction

Image: Nathan Whitlock

The story has come full circle: commissioned, decommissioned, re-commissioned, restored. After Joel Richardson’s mural was scrubbed from an underpass by Rob Ford’s graffiti Gestapo, the artist has now spray-painted a full replacement, with some alterations. The debacle actually worked out pretty well—Richardson received international exposure (leading to a showcase in New York City), sparked a debate about street art and prompted a plan for a database of city-sanctioned graffiti. While it’s not clear whether or not he was paid a second time, local businesses did help cover $800 in expenses. “I’m thrilled that they gave the space back to me,” Richardson told CBC News—although we hear he tried to preserve the other graffiti on-site, including an unflattering caricature of the mayor. Read the entire story [CBC] »

The Informer

To Market, To Market

October 21, 2011 | 3:15 pm

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Soon Toronto will have more condos than people

Condo city (Image: picturenarrative from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)

New research by Bank of America Merrill Lynch suggests Toronto is building too many condos for its own good, and the booming market could bust soon. “We think investors are underestimating the wall of inventory about to come on the market in the next 12 to 24 months,” write economists Ryan Bohren and Sheryl King in the report. Indeed, last month Toronto had a third more high-rises under construction than Mexico City or New York—both of which have well over three times T.O.’s population. John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty, wrote on his company blog that the most important condition for a bubble is in place: blind, aggressive investors. He believes expensive condos (outside of Yorkville) are most vulnerable to a lack of demand, as shown by the poor resale figures at Festival Tower and the Ritz-Carlton. Not all signs point to disaster, however: according to sources quoted in the National Post, the rental vacancy rate in Toronto was just 1.6 percent in April (versus the national rate of 2.5), and the current building blitz could be compensating for a drop in small-scale construction. Whatever the result, the cityscape is about to get a lot taller. Read the entire story [National Post] »

The Dish

Aprons & Icons

October 17, 2011 | 12:08 pm

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Q&A with Padma Lakshmi: the Top Chef host, who’ll be in town for the Delicious Food Show, talks about her favourite contestants and places to eat

Padma Lakshmi, the model, actress, sometime singer, Top Chef host and bestselling cookbook author, will be in town this weekend for the Delicious Food Show at the Better Living Centre. The show, which will also see appearances from Mark McEwan, David Rocco and Afrim Pristine of the Cheese Boutique, will feature cooking demonstrations, tastings, a wine-stomping and more. We chatted with the former supermodel about some of her favourite places to eat, her Top Chef co-star Tom Colicchio and her impressions of eating out in Toronto.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

October 17, 2011 | 10:30 am

1 Comment

How Israeli developer Gil Blutrich built his empire of vacation destinations for the yachting class in southern Ontario

By Leah McLaren

Gil Blutrich. (Image: Christopher Wahl)

Gil Blutrich believes in destiny. When he was a boy growing up in Ra’anana, a town north of Tel Aviv, he spent a lot of time fantasizing about what he wanted for his bar mitzvah. While most of the boys in his class opted for expensive stereo systems or family vacations in Europe, Blutrich chose to redecorate his room. It was the early ’70s, and photographic wallpaper murals were all the rage. Blutrich passed over the tropical beach scenes and snow-capped mountains for something different: a summer landscape with a lush green meadow and a reedy frog pond. It was, he now believes, a postcard of southern Ontario, cosmically mailed back in time by his future self. “I looked at that wallpaper every day until I was 18, and it’s only now I realize I was looking at Canada and thinking about Canada before I even knew it. If that’s not destiny, I don’t know what is.”

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The Informer

A Message from Toronto Life

October 15, 2011 | 10:25 am

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Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from an autumn walk to the King of Rock

Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.

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The Informer

City Sindex

October 14, 2011 | 6:50 pm

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Gawker gotchas: a roundup of Toronto’s most embarrassing moments according to the gossip giant

Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail’s “Caption Writing Person” set off an online frenzy with a series of epic one-liners mocking Hollywood excess in the age of the Occupy Everywhere movement. But it wasn’t long before people began wondering—for no good reason, really—whether the Globe had been hacked. For its part, Gawker published a post saying the caption writer had gone “rogue” (an adjective we think remains best reserved for failed vice-presidential candidates). Of course, we’re just grateful that this Can Con moment was far less embarrassing than the usual appearances. Nonetheless, some Toronto Gawker headline highlights, after the jump.

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The Informer

The New Normal

October 13, 2011 | 5:10 pm

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Comparisons between the G20 and Occupy Toronto protests are coming a touch too early

(Image: Paul Stein)

This weekend, Toronto demonstrators will launch a protest motivated by the ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City. In the lead-up to the event, Justin Beach at change.org published an open letter to Bill Blair and the Toronto Police, requesting that they strive to ensure this weekend’s demonstration doesn’t go all G20.

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