Toronto Condo and Real Estate Blog

Two-tower condominium in St. Lawrence neighbourhood starts construction less than a year after sales launch

A charming and historic downtown neighbourhood, architecture inspired by the great cities of Europe and one of Toronto’s top chefs were all part of the celebration of the official groundbreaking on December 3rd at the exciting London on the Esplanade condominium development.

Just eight months after launching sales, Cityzen Development Group has begun construction of London on the Esplanade. Located at 38 The Esplanade in the heart of downtown Toronto, London on the Esplanade is just across the street from the Hummingbird Centre and within walking distance of Union Station and the Financial District.

“The design of London on the Esplanade bridges between the historical character of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood, with its great pubs, restaurants and shops, and the contemporary designs of the skyscrapers in the financial district,” Sam Crignano, a Cityzen partner, said at the recent groundbreaking ceremony.

The project will have two towers rising from a five-storey podium with the taller 33-storey tower sitting on the west side of the site. Architect Roy Varacalli, of Burka Varacalli Architects, has given the development’s taller building an all-glass, modern design that connects with the skyscrapers of the business district.

On the east side of the site, the 15-storey tower features a glass and red-brick exterior that blends with the 19th-century buildings of the St. Lawrence neighbourhood. The podium housing the central lobby and amenity area connects the two towers.

Massimo Renzi, head chef at Sotto Sotto Trattoria on Avenue Road, one of Toronto’s leading restaurants, purchased a suite in London on the Esplanade because the St. Lawrence neighbourhood reminds him of his native Rome.

“What I love about the St. Lawrence area are the walkable streets packed with historical buildings. It gives the neighbourhood an old-world look that reminds me of great European cities like London and Rome. And as a chef, I couldn’t resist living in a building located so close to the culinary delights of St. Lawrence Market,” Renzi said.

With the start of construction, Cityzen has released a new series of Courtyard Suites in London on the Esplanade. Many of the Courtyard Suites overlook the rooftop outdoor swimming pool and landscaped sun deck.

A wide range of suites are available in London on the Esplanade, from studio units of 345 sq. ft. to one- and two-bedroom units, with or without dens, up to 955 sq. ft.

Prices range from $199,990 to $800,000 for spacious penthouse suites with spectacular views of the downtown skyline and the waterfront.

Residents at London will enjoy a taste of outdoor living, for all suites have a balcony or terrace. Interior features include floor-to-ceiling windows, engineered hardwood flooring, sliding bedroom closet doors with full-length mirrors and bathrooms with framed-glass shower stalls, marble-tiled floors and cultured marble countertops.

Functional, open-concept kitchens have extended upper cabinets, a wide choice of granite countertops, ceramic tile backsplashes and kitchen islands ideal for eating at or for using as serving stations when entertaining.

Residents at London will be able to wind down after a busy day at Club London, which has a rooftop outdoor swimming pool and year-round whirlpool, massage and spa rooms, aerobics and yoga rooms, a fitness centre with cardio and weight-training equipment and his and her change rooms with showers.

For those who wish less strenuous activity, the Club also has an entertainment room, an English-styled pub, a games room with two billiards tables, fireplace lounge and movie room with theatre-style seating.

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The 20th century was not kind to this historic street, but projects such as Chocolate Co. Lofts show what can happen when it’s given some respect

By John Bentley Mays - The Globe and Mail

The recent mending of Queen Street West between Spadina Avenue and the Parkdale neighbourhood is something Torontonians can be proud of. Parking lots are disappearing, and galleries of intelligent contemporary art, furniture stores, chic restaurants and hotels, and smart boutiques have appeared and, apparently, are prospering.

Though their clientele is up market, the new local business folk have not demanded that citizens who need the services of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, at 999 Queen West, be banished from the sidewalks. The various consumers of urban life are getting along. After decades of dilapidation, the avenue is alive and livable again in a civilized, thoroughly big-city way.

But even if we let her get a bit tattered and snaggle-toothed in the 20th century, Queen always did have good bones. She was among the earliest streets laid out on the muddy shoreline of Lake Ontario after 1793, and a key geographical baseline for the city’s future development of streets and building lots.

In the middle of the next century, architect John Howard’s muscular neo-classical Provincial Asylum (now vanished) went up at 999 Queen - at that time, an address still in the countryside - and Bishop Strachan’s imposing Trinity College was built at Queen and Bellwoods Avenue, a few blocks closer to town.

In late Victorian times, with waves of British immigrants pushing the city westward, this once-rural corridor was populated by many small shops, factories and houses, and assumed an air of main-street, working class respectability.

In some spots along the Queen streetscape, there were splashes of architectural high style and attitude - and there was, until the 1970s, the mighty edifice of the asylum - but the general sense of the street was (and is) down to earth, mostly nuts and bolts and brick and Scottish porridge.

Plazacorp’s Chocolate Company Lofts, a mix of conversion and new residential construction at 955 Queen Street West, is a good example of what happens when urban bones get some respect.

The raw material for this project consisted of a couple of two-toned brick industrial buildings once owned by the Patterson Chocolate Company. Though obsolete for commercial use, these mid-rise structures made a good visual fit with the three-storey Victorian storefronts across the street, the big Candy Factory Lofts next door, and other elements of the old streetscape.

Instead of ripping them down and starting from scratch, the developer decided to salvage the two structures, then directed the designers (Gabriel Bodor and Quadrangle Architects) to knit them together with new brick fabric designed to match the old.

The result is a single, large six storey condominium loft building - the few remaining suites are for sale at between $169,900 and $401,900 - that sits quietly on its site, doesn’t quarrel with the neighbours, and looks, more or less, as though it has always been there.

Which raises interesting questions. When does it make sense for a building to slip discreetly into the streetscape (as the Chocolate Company Lofts does), and when is it appropriate for a new structure to break with local tradition and go big and noisy?

Community groups, historical preservationists, developers and architects will be arguing over such matters until doomsday. That’s understandable, because there is no final, absolute right and wrong in the field of urban aesthetics. What should be done, insofar as architectural style is concerned, is very much a matter of context - a given circumstance or opportunity, the cultural mood of the present moment, the historical importance or unimportance of a specific site.

In the case of the Chocolate Company Lofts, I believe the developer and architects made a good decision. Unlike districts closer to the downtown towers, this western stretch of Queen was neither intensively torn apart nor simply allowed to go to the dogs since its creation in the 19th century. It was never just so many unloved, unimportant warehouses and workplaces, or so much weedy, derelict industrial land.

People lived vividly along Queen, and many traces and echoes of that vivid life remain in the buildings themselves - in elaborate, multicolored brickwork, for example, and in the extravagant story-book carvings that decorate the Gladstone Hotel, and in the short sweeps of glassy storefronts under tall, dignified brick facades. Queen Street West has surely been damaged and neglected, but much of its stolid Victorian character remains intact.

What it needs is not heroic architectural therapy, but more time to heal, and more of the old-fashioned medicine used successfully to revive the Patterson Chocolate Company buildings.

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Excertp from an article by Christopher Hume - Toronto Star

The Chocolate Company Lofts, at 955 Queen Street West, are an excellent example of how existing buildings can be integrated with new and both benefit. Although this complex isn’t completely finished yet, it’s already clear the results will be something that enhances the neighbourhood and indeed, the city.

The original building, at the east end of the block (Massey St.), is a simple yellow- and red-brick structure brought to life by decorative masonry and an imposing stone entrance on Queen.

The original building at Chocolate Company Lofts, with its imposing stone entrance, sets the tone for a new addition.

The differences are subtle but unmistakable. Best of all, Chocolate Co. exists in harmony with its neighbours, including the deftly redone Candy Factory Lofts next door. There’s none of that generic quality so characteristic of Toronto architecture. Even the addition on top manages to be unobtrusive.

This is one loft complex that couldn’t be anywhere else, that belongs.

Read the rest of the article here:

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