A proposal from First Capital Realty to build a 65,000-square-foot mixed-used development on the site of the Humbertown strip mall in Etobicoke has local residents, including mayor Rob Ford and his brother Doug, concerned for the neighbourhood’s suburban character. The proposal comprises five buildings containing 576 apartment units, 28 townhouses, 21,000 square metres of commercial space and underground parking. Councillor Gloria Lindsay-Luby and neighbours say it will bring traffic congestion and an unwelcome spike in population density, and the mayor himself showed up at a Etobicoke Community Council meeting last night to put magnets on the cars in the parking lot slam the scheme and remind developers that “this isn’t downtown, this Etobicoke.” Meanwhile, the residents’ association has hired an architect to draw up a proposal for the kind of development they might support, which has 202 residential units, a town square and a maximum building height of six stories rather than 12. First Capital, however, says it’s not planning to adjust its plans before city council considers them at a June 11 meeting. [Globe and Mail]
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Jet-setting philanthropist Peter Munk, the 85-year-old founder of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp., is taking a rogue approach to real estate: he’s dumping big money into condo developments at a time when Toronto’s already overflowing with high rises and other developers are backing away. Munk is using his personal wealth to help finance CD Capital, headed by Todd Cowan and Jordan Dermer, who were previously execs at another real estate company backed by Munk. The developers’ projects include, among others, the 300-unit Sixty Colborne project near St. Lawrence Market and 155 Redpath at Yonge and Eglinton, an area Dermer argues is ripe for development. Munk, meanwhile, says the city’s starry future is reason enough to invest. Hard to argue with a billion-dollar man. [Globe and Mail]
The threat of a big-box development is still alive in Kensington Market—but so is Casa Acoreana
The proposed shopping centre on Bathurst and College (Image: Turner Fleischer Architects)
The developer hoping to build a big-box development on the western edge of Kensington Market isn’t giving up. After both the city’s committee of adjustment and the Ontario Municipal Board rejected its application for a 12,000-square-metre shopping centre on Bathurst just south of College, the RioCan-backed company has now applied for a zoning amendment, which must go through city council. That process also gives residents a chance to weigh in, which many will undoubtedly take given the community’s history of fighting against anything that could imperit the market’s character. To wit: recent rent hikes that threatened to displace longstanding café and food shop Casa Acoreana caused enough of a stir that the landlord reconsidered. [Urban Toronto]
Developer Brad Lamb calls out the “greedy parking hogs” in The Beach, High Park and the Annex
”Get with it, this is the future.” (Image: Facebook)
Downtown residents, developers and the city have long bickered over the appropriate amount of parking for new condo buildings. Now, as condos move steadily outward, that same debate is flaring up in other parts of the city. Take The Beach, an area known for its anti-development fervour. Residents say a 70-unit project at Queen and Woodbine needs more than the 65 parking spots currently slated because street parking is already scarce. (Yet that ratio is still more generous than many buildings downtown, where developer Brad Lamb says he aims for roughly half as many parking spots as units.) But developers argue putting in more than the bare minimum of parking is bad business: with the popularity of car-shares rising and parking space prices eclipsing $50,000, many spaces go unsold. The always outspoken Lamb offered a solution: “Everybody, including the greedy parking hogs in the Beach and in High Park and in the Annex and all the other places . . . they need to understand. Get with it, this is the future.” Somehow, we doubt condo naysayers in The Beach are going to take his advice. [Toronto Star]
Three Toronto property giants write a letter opposing a downtown casino (and embarrassing Paul Godfrey)
(Image: Ian McKellar)
Only a week after three former Toronto mayors penned a letter opposing the development of a casino in Toronto, three of the city’s largest commercial property firms have written their own letter against the idea of a downtown gambling den—but for very different reasons. Edward Sonshine, Michael Emory and Stephen Diamond, who head RioCan, Allied Properties and Diamond Corp., respectively, don’t oppose casinos on principle, but they say the traffic snarls that would result from putting one in the city’s core could “jeopardiz[e] the success of our downtown.” Specifically, the execs are worried about implications for the major mixed-use project they hope to develop at the foot of Spadina, a few blocks west of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre—one of the proposed casino locations (and the one with the fanciest renderings to date). For OLG chair and casino cheerleader Paul Godfrey, the letter is a downer twice over: it’s ammunition for the anti-gambling faction and, since Godfrey is also the chair of the board at RioCan, it’s also pretty humiliating. [Globe and Mail]
The Toronto Star’s old parking lot could soon house Canada’s two tallest condo towers
Pinnacle’s proposal would see five new towers next to the Toronto Star building at 1 Yonge Street (Image: Taxiarchos228)
The plans for a large-scale development at 1 Yonge Street, currently home to a set of low-rise buildings and the Toronto Star’s old parking lot, are even more ambitious than last summer’s rumours suggested. Late last week, Urban Toronto published a pair of architectural sketches showing Pinnacle International’s plans for a skyline-defining, five-tower development that would include Canada’s two tallest skyscrapers. Alongside the 92-storey and 98-storey buildings, the cluster would also contain an office tower of some 30 storeys, two 70-storey towers and street-level retail space (the Toronto Star office at the corner of Yonge and Queens Quay would remain untouched). The proposal is still in its infancy as the city has requested Pinnacle wait to formally submit it until after Waterfront Toronto has finished a study on future development in the area, which may not be until late summer. Moreover, as with Oxford Properties’ Convention Centre plans and David Mirvish and Frank Gehry’s theatre district proposal, questions remain over the area’s ability to sustain a set of monolithic residential towers. Although, at least Pinnacle would only be razing a parking lot, and not a beloved theatre. [Urban Toronto]
Condos versus factories: five battlegrounds in Toronto’s re-zoning war
The clashing factions in Toronto’s condo fights used to be easy to identify: angry residents and ambitious developers. Now, the debate includes factory owners and workers as well. The city is currently undergoing a five-year-plan review, which allows landowners a rare chance to request a change to their property’s zoning designation, and with the supply of residential land dwindling, developers are hungrily eyeing parcels currently set aside for industry and offices. Here are five places where the battle is playing out.
The Celtic Invasion: why the arrival of hundreds of Irish construction workers benefits Toronto’s building boom
Sean and James McQuillan left Ireland for Toronto in 2010
In the mid-1990s, companies such as Microsoft, Intel and Apple, attracted by Ireland’s well-educated workforce, tax incentives, minimal regulations and low wages, opened offices in Dublin with a speed that surprised even the gravest doubter. By the time the Celtic Tiger, as the exploding Irish economy was dubbed, had fully deployed its claws, the unemployment rate had dropped to just under five per cent, one of the lowest in the developed world. Ireland’s GDP grew to one of the highest in Europe, exports doubled in just five years, and the average income was climbing seven per cent a year, almost triple the Read the rest of this entry »
eurozone average.
A look at the best and worst of Frank Gehry’s past mega-projects
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When David Mirvish and Frank Gehry announced their major King West redevelopment plans earlier this month, Mirvish said the pair weren’t building three condo towers—they were creating “sculptures for people to live in.” However, the poetics didn’t quash concerns about whether the Theatre District’s infrastructure can sustain the 2,600 new condo units or whether anyone will buy the apartments in an already saturated market. For Gehry, though, those issues aren’t new. Over the past decade, the Harvard-educated architect has proposed similarly grand designs in New York, his hometown of L.A., and overseas—all of which have been met with a certain degree of trepidation. Some ultimately lived up to their promise, becoming iconic, landmark buildings, while a tough economy and high costs have delayed others (a track record that has raised questions about whether his Toronto project will ever even happen). Here, we examine five of the starchitect’s past residential projects, and see how his Mirvish plans compare.
David Mirvish and Frank Gehry want to raze the Princess of Wales Theatre to build condos
(Image: Gehry International, Inc)
Over the weekend, theatre tycoon David Mirvish unveiled a grand plan to knock down a section of the entertainment district that includes the Princess of Wales Theatre, and replace it with three 80-storey condo towers designed by Frank Gehry. (At the moment, the renowned Toronto-born architect’s redesign of the AGO remains his only major contribution to the local cityscape.) The project, which would nestle along King Street between the Royal Alexandra and the TIFF Bell Lightbox, would contain all manner of development goodies, according to Mirvish:
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Nestlé resorts to robo-calls to fight a development next to its chocolate factory
Nestlé’s South Junction factory (Image: Uncle Tubby)
The battle over a stretch of industrial decay sitting next to the Nestlé chocolate factory in the South Junction Triangle is intensifying. To recap, Castlepoint Realty bought the land off Alcan in 2007, started the process of environmental remediation and proposed a mixed-use residential development that would include 45 townhomes, a few office towers and a public square. Residents are generally enthusiastic about the project, but Nestlé has been trying to block it because they fear the noise, trucks and smells from the 24/7 operation will make would-be residents unhappy, which could, in turn, force the factory to make changes. (We guess chocolate making isn’t all Oompa Loompa songs and edible gardens.) This week, the chocolate maker ramped up its efforts to thwart the development, dropping flyers at every house in Ward 18, sending people door to door and even using everyone’s favourite mode of harassment, robo-calls. Residents are already angry about the aggressive approach, which won’t help Nestlé’s case when the city’s planning and growth committee discusses the issue on November 8. [Toronto Star]
How a small group of farmers and wealthy weekenders made the Melancthon mega-quarry protest a cause célèbre
An unexpected casualty of Toronto’s building boom is the sleepy southern Ontario township of Melancthon, where an American hedge fund plans to excavate $6 billion worth of limestone.
Fight Club: The farmer-chef Michael Stadtländer helped organize Foodstock, a quarry protest attended by 28,000 people (Image: Jason Van Bruggen)
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Melancthon’s windswept highlands spread out like a grand table underneath the sky. At 1,700 feet above sea level, southern Ontario’s highest point, the air is different: cool and often foggy, it’s a world away from smog-suffocated Toronto, which lies 100 kilometres to the southeast. The climate is ideal for raising crops, and tens of millions of kilos of potatoes are grown each year in the township’s rich, silty loam. The karst, or fractured limestone, that lies beneath the soil delivers an almost perfect drainage system—no matter how much it rains, crops never flood.
We rate some of Adam Vaughan’s best zingers, in honour of his profile in the Toronto Star
(Image: BriYYZ)
Toronto newspapers can’t help but quote councillor Adam Vaughan with startling regularity, and a Toronto Star article last weekend looked at why. The (somewhat obvious) answer? He’s a bon mot machine, with a sharp wit and a sharper tongue. This takes work: Vaughan, a former CityTV reporter, reads books of famous quotes and sometimes works on a one-liner all day before saying it aloud to reporters. Naturally, they take the bait, resulting in plenty of media attention for the would-be 2014 mayoral candidate. (Though we’re sure the fact that Vaughan frequently targets the eminently newsworthy Rob Ford doesn’t hurt, either.) Given the extent to which Vaughan prides himself on his wit, we decided to rate some of his most memorable quips.
Condomonium: $785,000 for a two-level unit with a private rooftop patio in the Beach
ADDRESS: 1842 Queen Street East, Unit 304
NEIGHBOURHOOD: The Beach
AGENT: Kerri-Ann Brownlee, Bosley Real Estate
PRICE: $785,000
THE PLACE: A top-floor, two-level suite in the Beach House Lofts. The mixed-use building blends in with the neighbouring storefronts and won a 2009 Toronto Urban Design Award.
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The University of Toronto created a stir earlier this year when news surfaced about an agreement with Knightstone Capital Management to build a 24-storey student residence south of College Street, between Spadina and Huron. Residents weren’t thrilled at the prospect of 800 (possibly) soused-up and raucous students living nearby, and worried that one high-rise in the low-lying neighbourhood could open the door to others. With the revelation this week that a different American company, Bailey and Company, has filed a rezoning application to build a 30-storey mixed-use structure right next to the proposed residence, the latter fear appears justified. The Ontario Municipal Board’s next pre-hearing on the Knightstone building isn’t until November—giving residents’ associations plenty of time to hone their “slippery slope” arguments. [Globe and Mail]
