Tag Archives: toronto church lofts
Praise the loft
Windmill Developments plans to convert a red-brick, Neo-Gothic church at Perth Ave and Wallace Ave. into a condo that it has christened Union Lofts.
Ryan Starr – Toronto Star
Developer Alex Speigel strolls to the back of the vacant Perth Ave. church building and sits down in front of a massive old pipe organ. He pauses for a moment and then lays his hands on the keyboard, producing a few pleasant chords and a bluesy passage that resonates delightfully throughout the defunct house of worship.
His company, Ottawa-based Windmill Developments, plans to convert the red-brick, Neo-Gothic church at the northeast corner of Perth Ave and Wallace Ave. (near Dundas St. W. and Bloor St. W.) into a condo that it has christened Union Lofts. (“Praise the loft,” the project’s brochure implores. “Prepare to be converted.”)
The church, most recently occupied by a Seventh Day Adventist congregation, was designed by George Miller (of Gladstone Hotel fame) and built in 1913.
The old organ, manufactured in 1924 by Quebec’s Casavant Frères, a company that’s still around, sounds divine. But finding someone to take the impressive instrument — with 849 pipes, some which reach as high as 25 feet — off Windmill’s hands is proving to be a major challenge.
“We’re trying to find a home for it,” explains Speigel, the company’s Toronto-based managing partner, on a recent tour of the church building, which currently serves as the Union Lofts sales centre. “We’ve contacted all kinds of churches and theatres.”
So far, though, no takers.
Union Lofts – 243 Perth Ave
Fortunately Windmill hasn’t had as tough a time generating interest in Union Lofts.
Suites range from 550-square-foot one-bedroom units to 1,200-square-foot two-bedroom-plus den lofts. Prices start at $249,900 and go to $629,900.
The project, designed by Caricari Lee Architects, will comprise two sections.
The original church building will be preserved and reconfigured to house 24 units, each of them with unique layouts owing to the shape of the existing structure. The top floors will have two-storey townhouse-like units.
“It’s like building a building within a building,” Speigel explains. “It’s pretty complex. We have to add floors and use all the existing building openings, because (the city’s heritage preservation department) is concerned with keeping the look of the building.
“So the entire shell is being restored, and we’re also building up and into the roof.”
Indeed, one of the top-floor lofts will extend up into a large church turret.
“Units in the existing building will be kind of like a Rubik’s Cube,” Speigel says. “They go up and over the other, and they interlock.
“The church units are all quirky,” he adds. “And people really like that.”
Next door, where the church parking lot currently sits, a new 15-unit building — the Vestry — will be built, with four condos per floor.
The new addition will have brick that matches the church, but it will have a distinctly modern design, Speigel stresses. “When you mimic the old, it sort of cheapens it in a way. You want to see clearly what’s old and what’s new.
“So (the new building is) clearly of our time and the church is clearly of another time. But the materials and massing are sympathetic.”
Union Lofts’ open floor plans maximize natural daylight, with a sliding door system that enables efficient use of open spaces.
Suites at Union Lofts will have a private patio, terrace, balcony or Juliette balcony, with water hose bibs on the patios and terraces.
Kitchens come with custom Scavolini cabinetry, islands and Caeserstone countertops.
Speigel, previously director of development for Context Development, has been involved with several Toronto conversion condo projects in the past, including The Loretto, Tip Top Lofts and Kensington Lofts.
“It’s never the same thing twice,” he says. “That’s the good thing and the bad thing about them. It makes it very interesting but you just never know what you’re in for.”
“A lot of developers don’t like to do conversions,” he adds. “They would rather just tear down and build new. It’s simpler and there’s less risk involved.
“But for me it’s the challenge of working with an existing building and it’s just great to save and preserve them.”
Speaking of saving, one can only pray that the great old church organ finds a new congregation.
“Whether we find a home for it in a church is to be determined,” Speigel cautions. “It’ll be expensive to take apart, and most churches have an electronic organ now; they don’t have the room or the design for this much space.
“Still,” he says after noodling on the instrument for a few moments, “it’s quite fantastic.”
HOLY GREEN
Windmill Developments, which claims to be “Canada’s greenest developer,” is targeting LEED Platinum certification for Union Lofts.
All of Windmill’s past projects have achieved LEED Platinum, the top level of the system for measuring green buildings.
Preserving and re-using the existing church building will do much to help in this effort.
“You’re not sending all this material to landfill,” says Speigel. “It’s still got all the embodied energy that was in it.”
There will be a geothermal heating/cooling system installed under Union Loft’s new Vestry building.
Each unit at Union Lofts will have double-glazed argon-filled windows with low-e coatings, and come equipped with an ERV (energy recovery ventilator) system. An ERV supplies fresh air directly to individual suites, heating and cooling it using energy drawn from the outgoing air.
Appliances at Union Lofts are all Energy Star, including a stackable washer and dryer – and the suites come with Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood flooring in the main living areas and bedrooms.
Union Lofts
Location: 243 Perth Ave.
Developer: Windmill Developments Group, windmilldevelopments.com
Architect: Caricari Lee Architects, caricarilee.com
Size: 4 storeys; 2 buildings
Units: 40 units; 550 sq. ft. to 1,200 sq. ft.
Price: $249,900 to $629,900
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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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A Toronto church conversion built with grace and courtesy
John Bentley Mays – The Globe and Mail
Toronto’s great Edwardian sprawl gobbled up the little farms and pastures in my west-side neighbourhood (east of the Junction) just before the outbreak of the First World War. Along with the surge of housing and industry came numerous Christian church buildings, almost all sturdy and devoid of architectural fussiness. Nowadays, these plain, dignified structures still stand on streets throughout the district, though many are empty or nearly so.
If advancing secularism is sometimes blamed for this state of affairs, that’s hardly the reason nobody attends services any longer at the old Perth Avenue Church. The 1913 building, in a rapidly gentrifying area south of Dupont Street and west of Lansdowne Avenue, was abandoned by its congregation a couple of years ago simply because they needed a more spacious church (and parking lot) to accommodate an ever-larger influx of worshippers.
But the believers’ happy situation could have turned out badly for those who cherish Toronto’s modest west-side streetscapes, if the only buyers who had stepped forward were people bent on demolishing the church and putting up something wholly out of character in its place.
Fortunately, this did not occur. What’s planned for the Perth Avenue site by its current owner, Windmill Development Group, is the sensitive, imaginative conversion of the church into a 24-unit loft structure and the erection of a new 14-unit, four-storey building (called the Vestry) atop the adjacent parking lot. For the record, the suites range in area from just over 550 square feet to just under 1,200 square feet, and in price from about $250,000 to $630,000.
If everything works out as the developer and Toronto architect Joseph Caricari intend, Union Lofts, as the project is called, will be an attractive mid-priced condominium complex featuring many a modern grace and courtesy. The Vestry is completely contemporary in design, for example, with a flat roof and metal and glass cladding. But the the dark brown brick that will frame the Vestry’s wide window openings will rhyme well with the fabric of the adjoining church and bell tower.
Though completely different in style, the church and the Vestry will balance each other with matching height, simplicity and heft. The church is buxom, unrefined architecture typical of its time and forthrightly Protestant type; and, quite correctly, Mr. Caricari will do nothing to prettify it. The church suits its neighbourhood, which was built out for workers in nearby plants and workshops, not the city’s cultural elite. A certain coarseness is welcome in this context, and we should be glad the architect has decided to leave the exterior much as it has been for the last hundred years.
That said, I wish the main entrance to the church, at the bottom of the bell tower rising beside the intersection of Perth and Wallace avenues, could be preserved. Shoe-horning a lot of dwellings into the church probably made its elimination inevitable – but the entry really is a nice feature of the original design, and losing it could make the Perth Avenue façade seem too hard and blank.
Whatever hesitations I have about this or that aspect of the complex’s exterior – too much nip here, too little tuck there – one thing is certain: Union Lofts promises to brim with environmental friendliness.
Windmill partner Alex Speigel told me that his company is going for platinum – the highest – rating for the project under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) regime of scoring the ecological virtues of new construction. To bring in Union Lofts at that top level, Mr. Speigel will have to prove that his two buildings, old and new, perform exceptionally well and display signs of having been thought out very well.
The published list of systems and tactics planned to bring about this end is long. Heating and cooling of the suites will be assisted by a geothermal set-up, and each apartment will be outfitted with an energy recovery ventilator, a gadget that (among other things) extracts heat from stale air and passes it on to fresh air coming in from the outside. There will be no carpets; natural hardwood floors and porcelain tiles minimize the incidence of dust and mould.
Windmill also hopes to win LEED points for adapting an old building to contemporary use, for being near public transit, and for limiting the volume of construction and demolition debris headed for landfills.
Whether Union Lofts bags the LEED platinum rank, of course, remains to be seen. But if they can be depended on at all, Windmill’s renderings, plans and fact sheets suggest that the company is taking its work here seriously indeed.
It’s certainly one of the most interesting overhauls of an old building I’ve seen in a long time.
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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
Related posts:
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Toronto penthouse lingers on market until price cut
Sydnia Yu – The Globe and Mail
Address: PH6 – 11 Woodlawn Avenue West, Toronto
Asking price: $1,199,000
Taxes: $7,265
Days on the market: 2
Comment: The loft was on the market on and off since May 3rd, 2012. It took a total of 156 days and two price drops to sell the place. I showed it to a few clients in the summer, they thought it was too high. Great place, though!
The Action: This two-bedroom penthouse lingered on the market at $1.379-million right through the summer. But another agent, Sue Mills, sold the loft in two days once she relisted it late last year for less than $1.2-million.
What They Got: In 1990, the Matthews Group converted a 61-year-old church to house six lofts, including this penthouse with 2,341-square-feet of living space spread across two floors connected by a winding staircase, arched windows and hardwood floors throughout. The great room was dramatically finished with a gas fireplace, double height ceilings and a 12-by-18.5-foot terrace with new French doors and decking added within the past year.
The sky-lit master suite upstairs is three times the size of the main-floor bedroom with a walk-in closet, laundry room and recently remodelled seven-piece en suite, which is the largest of three bathroom with a whirlpool tub and separate shower stall with a rainfall showerhead and adjustable wall shower.
The balance of the loft provides a formal kitchen and open dining area for cooking and consuming meals, plus a locker and two-car parking for storage.
Monthly fees are $1,820.
The Agent’s Take: “Church loft conversions are becoming more popular but there are very few with only a handful of suites,” Ms. Mills states.
“Many of the original features remain and can be found in this suite including the two-storey cathedral ceiling, huge windows and stained glass.”
The seller’s stylish décor also enhanced this penthouse’s rare attributes.
“All six suites are two-storey units, however only suites number five and six are this large with the private elevator and south-facing terrace with skyline view,” Ms. Mills adds.
“It’s a perfect suite for entertaining with its gorgeous great room, spacious dining room and sunny south-facing terrace.”
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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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