Tag Archives: neighbourhood
Sync Lofts at Queen and Broadview one of Toronto’s better behaved additions
The recently completed Sync Lofts at Queen and Broadview bring in tune with neighbourhood
Christopher Hume – Toronto Star
Never underestimate the power of midrise to change a city.
Its effects are easily seen — and appreciated — along Queen Street, both east and west of Broadview Avenue. Written off for decades, this part of Toronto is now being brought into the 21st century thanks to a number of condo projects that make up in urbanity what they lack in height.
Comment: Hey, I grew up on Broadview, just south of Gerrard. Written off indeed!
Indeed, the area provides proof positive that six- to 10-storey buildings can contribute enormously to urban intensification without overwhelming the landscape. It is a lesson largely lost on local developers, most of whom seem to believe height makes right. In some areas, yes.
But in others, like Queen and Broadview, less so.
Yet with four-lane roads, the 501 streetcar line and a growing infrastructure of parks and other amenities, midrise makes sense.
There’s no better example than the best-known neighbourhood landmark — the magnificent 1893 redbrick heap known as the New Broadview Hotel, home of Jilly’s strip club. It is an impressive example of 19th-century midrise. With four storeys and a tower, the minor Romanesque masterpiece manages to dominate the corner without looming over it.
Sync Lofts – 630 Queen Street East
Happily handsome yet unobtrusive, this eight-storey condo fits into the streetscape effortlessly. The four-floor podium is finished in yellow brick, a nod to historical architectural fashion, and built out to the sidewalk.
The top storeys, made of glass and steel, are set back to lessen the impact of height. To minimize what could otherwise be a bulky presence, the building is broken up into several elements — including a small, pavilion-like structure on the corner of Queen and Carroll Streets.
In this way, Sync falls into the very human scale and rhythm of the old city, something that has flummoxed contemporary planners and architects for decades.
The building itself has no grand pretensions. It does its job of filling in a missing part of the urban fabric but isn’t loud and unnecessarily attention-seeking.
It also recognizes the historical flavour of the neighbourhood while remaining true to its modern (and modernist) roots. Without balconies extending in rows from the exterior, Sync is the very model of restraint.
This is one well-behaved building.
Grade: A
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information – 416-388-1960
Laurin & Natalie Jeffrey are Toronto Realtors with Century 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these articles, they just reproduce them here for people
who are interested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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New community being built from ground up for Pan Am Games new
Simone Abrahamsohn – Property Biz Canada
As the city prepares to host the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games, the future Athlete’s Village will be created on schedule – and on budget, according to Jason Lester, President of Dundee Kilmer Developments Ltd, the company managing the project.
“What’s exciting, is that the plan was already 20 years in the making,” says Lester. “But, the Games just gave it momentum it didn’t have yet before.”
According to Meg Davis, Vice-President of Waterfront Toronto, the plans for the Athlete’s Village were requested by the province, once the bid for the area renewal – and 32-hectare revitalization – was already underway.
“We got a call asking,’Can you fit the athletes village into the West Don Lands block plan?’ Basically, it meant advancing the West Don Lands [development] by about five or 10 years, getting it to market that much sooner.”
The Canary District is a 35-acre post-industrial site, stretching from Cherry St. to Bayview Ave., with an extended Front St. being the centre of the area.
From 0 to 12,000 by 2020
After almost no activity for 20 years, (and having a population of 0 in 2011) the emerging new district has been steadily forming since the ground breaking in the fall of 2011. About 700 workers fill the site each day, creating the soon-to-be community and most expensive component of the $1.4-billion Games.
After originally being cleared to become a housing project called “Ataratiri”, in the 1980s, (private investors retreated, hesitant due to flooding risk), that project was cancelled in the early 90s after a real estate crash. The new neighbourhood will have a population of approximately 12,000 by 2020.
Over 50 percent sold, the condominium community has attracted various stakeholders, including the City of Toronto, Waterfront Toronto and Infrastructure Ontario.
Residential buildings along Front Street will range between 11 and 15 storeys high, while heights on narrower Mill Street will drop down to eight storeys. Additionally, four architectural firms were asked to design the buildings within the athletes’ village, to avoid a homogenous look and achieve what Dundee Kilmer calls “cohesive diversity.”
Avoiding contract overruns of the past
A funding model has been implemented through a fixed price contract between Dundee Kilmer and Infrastructure Ontario, so that the $514-million provincial cost for the village won’t increase. They want to ensure the budget does not escalate as it did in the past, such as Vancouver’s Olympic village.
“We do a lot of upfront due diligence so [developers] know exactly what they’re getting into. Everything’s out on the table, so that when they sign the agreement they are agreeing to a specific date and … a specific price,” says Mandy Downes of Infrastructure Ontario.
“They don’t get paid until the work gets done, so there is a big financial incentive for them to complete it on time. They take the risk so that the province and the taxpayers are not on the hook for things we are not in control of.”
The up-and-coming new “Urban Village” will include a new streetcar line, created on a rebuilt Cherry Street, connecting to the district from King Street, and through to the neighbouring Distillery District.
The eight buildings currently in development will temporarily be home to approximately 10,000 Athletes from 41 countries during the Games, (while the sporting events will actually take place elsewhere, such as Toronto, Markham and Mississauga) and will be 100% complete once new tenants/owners move in in early 2016.
Plan includes affordable housing
The area will include the first residence for George Brown College, (housing 500 students), along with an adjoining YMCA, housing a pool and fitness centre, 253 units of affordable housing (a project in affiliation with the Fred Victor Centre), including studios as well as 2-bedroom plus den apartments, and townhomes, some as large as 1,475 square feet. Prices start at $200,000.
The almost-800 condominiums, 28 townhomes and 12 retail store and office spaces will be fully operational after the Games. The residential buildings along the extended Front Street East will have more than 40,000 square feet of retail space for rent.
Front Street will extend with four traffic lanes and lead to a Riverfront park. The $15 million, 18-acre park, known currently just as Don River Park, will open to the public this summer.
“There’s always a chance it might be changed to a politician’s name in the future,” says Lester.
“It will act almost like a trailhead to the ravine system on the east side of Toronto, as well as to the waterfront to the south. It’s quick access to the trail system for biking and walkers,” he said.
“There’s probably more parkland as a ratio to the community being built in this neighbourhood than any other community in downtown Toronto.”
Refurbishing landmark Canary Restaurant
Included in the plans to revive the East end neighbourhood is the refurbishing of the old Canary Restaurant, situated at the corner of Front Street East and Cheery Street from the mid-1960s to 2007.
The 19th Century Heritage building, dating back to 1859, experienced several incarnations, including being the Palace Street School and then the Cherry Street Hotel, before becoming the Canary Restaurant.
As industries moved out and various Waterfront revival plans were put on hold, the kitschy diner remained a fixture. The diner, at one point a popular spot for film crews, will serve as a symbol of the new area’s revitalization.
“It kind of gives you a layer, an anchor in time,” said Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB, the architectural firm involved in the project.
“I think what it does, is it amplifies the meaning and provokes a discussion about history. Little kids will say, ‘Why is this called the Canary District? I like the name, but why?’ And then there’ll be a story to be told.”
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information – 416-388-1960
Laurin & Natalie Jeffrey are Toronto Realtors with Century 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these articles, they just reproduce them here for people
who are interested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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How to find the home you never thought you wanted
Carolyn Ireland – The Globe and Mail
Toronto’s spring real estate market is full of quirks and happenstance.
Last week I wrote about Arie and Sabina Diamant, who were contemplating making an offer on a fixer-upper with a sloping basement floor in the pocket south of the Eglinton West subway station. The couple decided to pass on the house on Belvedere Avenue, but there’s a twist to the story – Ms. Diamant’s sister immediately bought it. Jody Segal and her husband have been renting in the neighbourhood during their one-and-a-half-year search for a place to buy.
They had looked at the semi-detached brick house earlier but they didn’t see the potential, says Ms. Segal. Like so many house hunters they had trouble envisioning a chic, modern house emerging from decades’ worth of clutter and oppressive window treatments.
But the couple was discouraged after another house they liked in the area sold in a bidding war for a price way beyond what they could afford. They had started to look in Thornhill and other areas farther from the core.
But when Ms. Segal heard from her sister Sabina that the house could be rejuvenated with a renovation, she reconsidered. She talked to Sabina’s agent, who saw the house as a solid property that offered lots of room for improvement – and therefore enhanced value.
That’s when Ms. Segal and her husband decided that the house might work for them and their two young children. It has a large lot and three bedrooms. And it wasn’t drawing much attention.
“It was cold,” says Ms. Segal. “It had been listed for a while.”
So they made an offer conditional on inspection and bargained the owner down from the $499,000 asking price.
During the five days they had to carry out an inspection, Ms. Segal says, another semi came up for sale on the same street. It had an asking price of $689,000 and offered only two bedrooms but it was renovated top-to-bottom and “showed” extremely well.
“People were flocking to it,” says Ms. Segal, who was walking contractors through the house she had purchased. While she was there, people who had been drawn to the house up the street and saw the “for sale” sign on hers were knocking on the door.
She figures those potential buyers weren’t even considering houses under $500,000 and therefore it wasn’t on their radar screens until they visited the street to see the more expensive house.
All of a sudden, the house they had purchased conditionally was getting fresh attention. Ms. Segal figures if she had waited just a few more days, they would have missed out.
Comment: And they might have been able to flip it days after buying it for a tidy profit!
“If we don’t take this now, we’ll never be able to stay in this neighbourhood,” Ms. Segal told her husband. Meanwhile, the builders and inspectors she talked to reassured her that the house is solid.
Now she and her husband are looking forward with great excitement to taking possession and getting the reno under way. They won’t attempt to live in the house while the work is going on.
“I’ve heard that marriages end that way,” she says.
Meanwhile, a savvy professional woman I know was tempted this week by a renovated two-bedroom house in New Toronto just a few doors up from Lake Ontario. She contemplated putting an offer on the table, but backed away when she heard that four offers had already been registered with one hour to go before the deadline.
The house had an asking price of $639,000 but she figures that a selling price above $700,000 would leave no room for increasing the value.
Comment: Again, what is with people and “increasing the value” of houses? If it is already reno’d, there is little to do. Either way, you pay $400k for a project and spend $200k to end up with a house worth $600k – or bid $600k on a house priced at $539k that is already reno’d. Just a matter of the time and effort you have to spend. Neither one is a better deal, both end up the same. Just a different journey to get there.
Besides, spring market competition is too nerve-racking, she adds, and she’s going to stay in her current house for a while longer.
Agents say there have been very few detached houses for sale in the west-end neighbourhoods along the lake this spring so any properties that do come on the market are immediately swarmed.
Still, they add, sales remain fickle and they’re sometimes at a loss to understand why some houses attract multiple offers and others none at all.
Micro-hoods: Where to find affordable homes in Toronto – Long Branch
For many years, Long Branch on the edge of Lake Ontario was a gritty neighbourhood bordered by industry.
The stores and restaurants on Lake Shore Boulevard West stubbornly resisted any hints of trendiness.
And, even as Mimico and New Toronto to the east were becoming more gentrified, Long Branch real estate lagged in value.
But long-time residents prefer the wider lots and quieter, less buzzy streets in Long Branch.
Partly the area was held back in the past by the odd housing mix: Lots of small apartment buildings and fourplexes stand side-by-side with the bungalows and two-storey brick houses on the curving, tree-lined streets.
But more recently, builders have been razing the smaller houses and building large, new dwellings.
The shift in housing stock is lifting the value of the entire neighbourhood.
As a sure sign the area is on the rise, the earnest barristas have arrived.
Fair Grounds is a bustling café roasting its own organic, fair-trade beans.
A few doors down, an outpost of the Burrito Boyz has opened near Brown’s Line.
For homeowners who want a boost from rental income, the area offers the opportunity to take in Humber College students attending the Lakeshore Campus.
Meanwhile, developers are launching new condominium projects close to the Long Branch GO Train station.
For now, the slower street car rumbles along Lake Shore Boulevard, but politicians and the Toronto Transit Commission have talked about building a Waterfront West LRT from Union Station to Long Branch.
As more people move into the area, new businesses and services are sure to follow.
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information – 416-388-1960
Laurin & Natalie Jeffrey are Toronto Realtors with Century 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these articles, they just reproduce them here for people
who are interested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
—————————————————————————————————–
Incoming search terms
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