CityPlace | torontolife.com

All stories relating to CityPlace

Nine Toronto Halloween costumes, from Kevin O’Leary to a condo tower

Since Halloween falls on a Wednesday this year, most of the revelry will be this coming weekend—which means there’s only a few days left to get a costume together. We’ve dreamed up a few Toronto-centric ideas to get you started.

Rob and Doug Ford: the two-headed mayor
What you’ll need: A papier mâché head of Doug (or Rob, depending on who you think is really in charge) to stick onto your shoulder. For the rest of the outfit, you’ll need a suit or some football coach gear (a Don Bosco varsity jacket would be perfect.)
Extra credit: A second papier mâché head of Adam Vaughan, for something well and truly unholy.

Bacon-Cupcake-Taco
What you’ll need: It’s every major food trend to hit Toronto this year in a (potentially very scary) costume, and there are a number of ways to pull it off. Do you go as a taco stuffed with little bacon-covered cupcakes? Do you wrap yourself up in pork, cover yourself in icing and add taco-shell shoulder pads? The possibilities are endless. Endless and awful.
Extra credit: You also manage to integrate the current ramen trend (you’re on your own for that).

Read the rest of this entry »

The Informer

Real Estate

October 16, 2012 | 3:45 pm

Comments

CBC reminds us that Toronto wasn’t always condo crazy

(Image: Seekdes)

It can be difficult to imagine a Toronto skyline uncluttered by the recently finished Shangri-La or Concord’s perpetually under-construction CityPlace—both feel like fixtures, despite their youth. The CBC must have thought so too, because it borrowed a fun format from the New York Times to help everyone remember life before the forest of downtown high-rises. Old and new photographs of the same vista sit next to one another, and a slider lets you scroll across to instantly populate the skyline—or level it. Dramatic before-and-afters like this usually involve black-and-white photos crammed with Model Ts and bowler hats, which makes it all the more arresting that most of these “before” images are from the ’90s (one is even from 2002). See all the photos [CBC] »

The Informer

Features

July 24, 2012 | 10:00 am

29 Comments

Faulty towers: who’s to blame for condoland’s falling glass, leaky walls and multi-million-dollar lawsuits

By Philip Preville | Photograph by Daniel Neuhaus | Illustrations by Bradley Reinhardt

Jan Gandhi and Omar Jabri share a love of big-city life: the people, the architecture, the fashion, the logarithmic bustle of human energy that comes from high-density, high-rise living. They first met as articling students with different Bay Street law firms, introduced by mutual friends. Together they moved to New York, where Gandhi worked as in-house counsel for MTV and Jabri as an intellectual property lawyer, and they lived in an apartment in Chelsea. Gandhi became addicted to flash-sale websites, filling her wardrobe with deeply discounted designer fashions. Flash sales are enormously popular in New York. She saw an underserved market in Toronto, so she hatched a plan to return and launch her own site.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Informer

Real Estate

July 12, 2012 | 3:23 pm

1 Comment

A few wealthy Torontonians will soon be able to live in a bridge in the sky

Given the ubiquity of condo construction in Toronto, a new development is generally nothing to gawk at. That is, unless it involves two luxury suites suspended in mid-air. In a 14-hour feat that took place late last month, Concord Adex hoisted a 40-foot-long, two-storey steel, glass and aluminum structure up 28 floors to connect the two Parade towers in CityPlace. By next February, the first floor of the SkyBridge will serve as a bar and lounge area for tower residents, complete with adrenaline-inducing glass floor cut-outs that offer views of cars and pedestrians below (like a glass-bottom boat, only with more visions of plunging to your death). The second floor of the bridge will be split into two residences of around 4,000 square feet each, overlooking the Toronto skyline and Lake Ontario. [Globe and Mail]

The Informer

Real Estate

April 18, 2012 | 3:42 pm

1 Comment

Oodles of condos create a thirst for downtown office space

(Image: Seekdes)

The unstoppable condo boom that has marked out nearly every neighbourhood for construction has also resulted in a demographic shift and a boom in office real estate in Toronto’s core. According to a report from Colliers International, the buyers snapping up downtown condos are mostly young people who want to walk to work. Companies, in turn, are moving into the core to stay close to their downtown-dwelling employees. That translates into declining office vacancy rates and higher rents, especially along King Street East (where Coca-Cola has new digs) and the south financial core near the waterfront. To keep up with that healthy demand, new office developments are also in the works in the area, mainly south of Union Station on the Railway Lands. Finally, some condo news that doesn’t involve bursting bubbles or falling glass. [Toronto Star]

The Informer

Real Estate

April 13, 2012 | 1:08 pm

2 Comments

CityPlace gets both uglier and safer with protective netting on balconies

Balconies of doom? (Image: picturenarrative)

The tsunami of condos in Toronto has raised questions about overheating in the housing market, energy efficiency and, terrifyingly, sprinklings of glass from on high. On that last note, the balconies on three CityPlace high-rises will soon be swathed in lovely safety mesh as a preventative measure against glass mishaps. According to CBC, Concord Adex, which developed CityPlace and is currently developing 25 other towers around the city, uses the same glass purveyor as buildings that rained shards down on the city last year. The netting is meant to prevent accidents (and bad press) and will stay “until a permanent industry solution is identified” (i.e., probably a really long time). Read the entire story [CBC] »

The Informer

Features

November 9, 2011 | 8:45 am

16 Comments

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.

CLICK HERE TO START THE STORY »

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

Real Estate

November 7, 2011 | 11:00 am

1 Comment

The Chase: two 30-something diehard downtowners find the perfect condo

Jennifer Zimmermann, a 30-year-old systems analyst, and Dustin Vaughan, a 32-year- old ad exec. By Monika Warzecha

The Buyers: Jennifer Zimmermann, a 30-year-old systems analyst, and Dustin Vaughan, a 32-year- old ad exec.

The Story: Vaughan and Zimmermann each owned a condo near Front and Spadina when they met online in May of 2009. Four months later, they decided to move in together. First they tried living in Zimmermann’s 600-square-foot one-bedroom, then Vaughan’s slightly larger place, but both units were too small for the two of them and their 85-pound greyhound, Jax. They loved living in a condo and wanted to stay within walking distance of their favourite hangs along King and Queen. With location in mind, they set a budget of $500,000 and embarked on a six-month search.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Dish

Drinks

April 20, 2011 | 9:11 am

9 Comments

The sipper club: meet the city’s competitive cabal of top sommeliers

Will Predhomme belongs to a competitive cabal of top sommeliers who sniff, sip and spit their way through hundreds of bottles a week. They do this to help you decide what to drink with your dinner, while making you think it was your idea all along
By Jason McBride | Photography by Sandy Nicholson

One hundred and fifty-one people have reservations at Canoe tonight. Among these are many Bay Streeters, a couple celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary, dozens of people on dates, including the bar manager from Crush, and a young woman who plans to propose to her boyfriend over dinner. The two private dining rooms are fully booked.

Canoe, part of the ever-expanding Oliver and Bonacini empire, is routinely considered one of the finest restaurants in the city. Last summer, in a rigorous competition held by the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers, known as CAPS, Canoe’s head sommelier, Will Predhomme, was proclaimed Ontario’s best. Predhomme has devoted a third of his life—he’s 29—to wine scholarship. He now knows more about wine than almost anyone in Toronto.

Just after 5 p.m., the bar area begins to fill up with commuters sipping cocktails as they wait for the traffic on the clogged Gardiner, 54 floors below, to dissipate. One of the restaurant’s first guests, a retired trial lawyer, arrives. As a young female host escorts him to his large corner table, he puts an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t like to pay bills,” he says. “I want a fucking account. Last time I was here, I offered those ladies”—referring to the hosts who greeted him at his last visit—“$300 and told them to set up an account for me. And I still don’t have one.” He and his three dining companions, Canoe regulars, have brought in several bottles of their own wine, including a cabernet franc from the ex-lawyer’s private vineyard in Tuscany. When Predhomme arrives at the table to discuss the wine, the ex-lawyer, captivatingly bratty in a way that only the rich and sort-of-powerful can be, repeats his complaint. “Look, I spend about $50,000 a year at Bymark, and I’d do the same here if I had a fucking account.” Predhomme is unmoved, but gracious. “If you give me your contact information,” he says, “I’ll make sure that it gets to the right people.”

“You’ll get me an account?”

“I’ll look into it.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Hype

High Art

January 20, 2011 | 5:05 pm

Comments

Toronto’s public art policy working surprisingly well

Canoe Landing Park at Cityplace (Image: Alfred Ng from the Torontolife.com Flickr pool)

Remember back in 2007, when the city implemented the Percent for Public Art policy, which requires large construction projects to devote one per cent of their budget to public art? (Don’t worry. Neither did we.) Incredibly, it’s actually working, according to arts critic Leah Sandals, who compiled for the Star a list of the best LED light installations that have been built thanks to the program.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Informer

Real Estate

November 10, 2010 | 3:41 pm

11 Comments

Home of the Week: $3.3 million for a tricked-out waterfront condo with eight-person hot tub

Dining room, with view

ADDRESS: 500 Queens Quay W., Unit 601W

NEIGHBOURHOOD: Waterfront Communities-The Island

AGENT: Marie Kozak, Chestnut Park Real Estate

PRICE: $3,299,000

THE PLACE: An enormous Queens Quay condo, with views overlooking the islands and Lake Ontario. Owned by a tech guru (she founded one of Canada’s first commercial ISPs), the place is tricked out like a Bond car. There’s a light control system, projection screen, private fibre optic cables and even a computer room with special air conditioning and uninterruptible power supply that would be perfect for a home business or epic World of Warcraft sessions.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Informer

Real Estate

September 22, 2010 | 11:41 am

7 Comments

The Chase: two sisters show us how to find a Toronto condo on a tight deadline

THE BUYERS
Madeleine Kline, a 63-year-old former school secretary, and her sister Nicole Fasano, a 55‑year-old retiree who worked in book publishing.

THE STORY
When Fasano’s husband died in 2009, she decided to sell her Oakville house and move to Toronto with her daughter Casey (a 28-year-old interior designer, still living with Mom to build her savings). Meanwhile, Kline, who also lived in Oakville, wanted to move closer to her own daughter at Yonge and St. Clair. The sisters decided to combine their resources. Their limit was $500,000, enough for two bedrooms and a den (for Casey) in a building with a pool (Kline has MS and needs a pool for physiotherapy). They had to act fast: both Oakville homes sold in March and had end-of-April closing dates.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Informer

Features

July 6, 2010 | 9:05 am

21 Comments

Risk Assessment: a neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood guide to the safest places to buy real estate in Toronto

No neighbourhood will react the same way to a burst bubble. We talked to market watchers, economists, mortgage brokers and seen-it-all real estate agents for the scoop on where to park your money, what streets to avoid and when to sell, sell, sell By Bert Archer

Read the rest of this entry »

Urban Decoder

December 9, 2009 | 3:00 pm

Comments

What is the purpose of those multicoloured statues in the CityPlace park?

(Photo by Caitlan Durlack)

The sculptures are one set of several installations commissioned by Concord Adex for its new CityPlace green space. The mammoth condo developer spent $9 million on the park, making it the largest privately funded public art exhibit in Canadian history. For the task, the firm chose Douglas Coupland, the author of Generation X and an infamous lover of Lego, Canadiana and all things pop. With the west coast in mind, he designed giant replicas of the bobbers used by fishermen. In summer, water burbles up from the cement between them—perhaps a simulation of the Pacific Ocean. Also adding to the true north ambience is a cartoonish red canoe overlooking the Gardiner, and the Terry Fox Miracle Mile, a running and walking track encircling the park that’s punctuated with poster-sized pictures of our national hero. As for the exact purpose of the bobbers, well that’s liable to provoke heated debate among observers. Marxists might say it alludes to the role of fishermen in feeding the bourgeois inhabitants of the surrounding condos; patriots would probably argue it stimulates public dialogue on Canadian identity; and aesthetes would say it’s art for art’s sake. But the most practical interpretation is likely to come from toddlers, for whom it’s the city’s coolest new splash pad.

• Question from Margie Doverson of Scarborough

Wondering about the waterfront? Curious about construction? Perplexed by politics? Ask the Urban Decoder a question here.

All stories relating to CityPlace

Contests