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Towered

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I was inspired by the recent North York thread to do one for the west end. Not particularly exciting, but that'll change in a few years! Enjoy.

Royal York Grand, at the north east corner of Royal York and Eglinton:
Mar26-08005.jpg


Render:
Mar26-08004.jpg


Sales centre for the James Club, a 14 storey condo at Royal York and Dundas (looking south on Royal York towards the Dundas overpass). Sales must be slow, seeing how construction was supposed to begin last October and there's no sign of action yet.
Mar26-08007.jpg


Looking north on Royal York from Dundas:
Mar26-08010.jpg


I don't know the name of this new condo on the south side of Dundas, just west of the Humber river bridge. I think it's a decent example of mid rise infill and looks kind of like a converted loft building you'd find on King west.
Mar26-08011.jpg


The Strand condos will be built here, on the south east corner of Dundas and Prince Edward. There was much NIMBY outrage but a recent OMB decision supported the developer.
Mar26-08018.jpg


Not sure which of the seemingly dozens of condo towers will be going up here on Park Lawn road, across from the cookie factory.
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I can't remember the name of this one either, but I think it has its own thread in the projects and construction section. South side of Lakeshore, right across from the Long Branch GO station.
Mar26-08028.jpg


I decided to include this shot of Alderwood plaza because I was amazed by its stunning ugliness. Urban blight in fine form (Evans and Browns Line). Can condoization be just around the corner for this pathetic thing? Sherway is just down the street...
Mar26-08030.jpg


One Sherway, phase 1 complete:
Mar26-08032.jpg


One Sherway, phase 2 topped out:
Mar26-08035.jpg


Both together from the mall entrance:
Mar26-08039.jpg


IQ condo sales centre, south side of the Queensway near Islington, between Zorra street and St. Lawrence avenue:
Mar26-08041.jpg


More IQ land:
Mar26-08040.jpg


The recently completed Loggia condos at Queensway and Islington, looking east:
Mar26-08044.jpg


The round windows are dumb, but otherwise I think it's great - meets the street and has retail in the base. Hopefully it will inspire similar developments to the west, a pretty depressing stretch currently.
Mar26-08045.jpg


The Queensway theatre across from Loggia, with the disgusting parking ocean:
Mar26-08046.jpg


Taking a look back, only about halfway across the parking lot...
Mar26-08048.jpg


The now complete Kingswood condo at Bloor and Islington, south west corner (which contains a Starbucks):
Mar26-08049.jpg


The latest phase of the Port Royal Place development rising above the former Michael Power high school lands (looking west from Bloor and Islington):
Mar26-08050.jpg


Another view of the same tower, looking east. I'm not sure if this is the last phase of this development - there is certainly enough room in the foreground for another one.
Mar26-08064.jpg


Looking across Bloor towards the Network Lofts conversion, which has been going on for an eternity. This has to be the slowest moving project in the entire city.
Mar26-08068.jpg


Another view looking east toward Bloor and Islington, with the Kingswood in the middle and the Clarica Centre on the left.
Mar26-08060.jpg


Looking west at Tridel's Essex and Nuvo buildings, with a lovely mountain of dirty snow on the Westwood theatre lands:
Mar26-08069.jpg


The same cluster, this time on Dundas just east of Kipling, with the notorious Six Points interchange in the foreground. I think it's finally slated to begin demolition this year.
Mar26-08072.jpg


Looking west on Dundas, with the nice new streetwall of Serrano and Tapestry condos. Too bad Port Royal Place just to the east breaks this continuity with their stupid huge park and buildings set far back from Dundas.
Mar26-08070.jpg


The same stretch of Dundas, looking west. If only now the north side with its awful 50's strip malls would be redeveloped.
Mar26-08073.jpg


Serrano:
Mar26-08075.jpg


Tapestry:
Mar26-08076.jpg


More Tapestry:
Mar26-08077.jpg


Construction of the sales centre for Evolution Condos on Dundas. If it turns out like the render it will be the nicest condo in Etobicoke by far. In the background is Port Royal Place with the ugly green glass, the accompanying "ye olde" townhomes, and 60's commie blocks. Doesn't all that beauty make you want to instantly move here? :p
Mar26-08078.jpg


Ongoing destruction of the Constellation Hotel (looking south towards Dixon on Carlingview). The loss of the "cheese grater" on the right is very unfortunate. It was eerily fitting that as I drove past it and looked up, Frank Sinatra sang "I'll set you free" on the radio...
Mar27-08007.jpg


A pile of rubble from the hotel:
Mar27-08001.jpg


The now abandoned former Ramada Inn (a Holiday Inn before that) on the west side of highway 427, between Rathburn and Burnhamthorpe. Strangely enough, the gates were wide open:
Mar27-08010.jpg


A closer view. Notice that the windows are all missing on the taller part.
Mar27-08011.jpg


That's all for now!
 
I decided to include this shot of Alderwood plaza because I was amazed by its stunning ugliness. Urban blight in fine form (Evans and Browns Line). Can condoization be just around the corner for this pathetic thing? Sherway is just down the street...

I certainly hope so! The area also needs a good size grocery store. The Ontario Farms one that opened early last year, shut down six months later!

The owner of the Pro Hardware store is retiring, and there's several other vacant stores in the complex.

Tear down this puppy and build a vibrant retail/residential development.
 
Towered: thank you very much for this thread!

Here are the names you couldn't remember:

Photo #5 Essence of the Kingsway
Photo #7 South Beach
Photo #8 Aquaview

I hope the James Club happens - it will pretty much double the density of the site across Royal York from Humbertown Plaza. It looks like it will be built right on top of the shallow parking garage (see below) that currently sits just south of the existing building. (I've always wondered what the interior of the exisiting building on site is like - do the walls curve along with the building, or are they a series of short straight segments?)

2369181436_f27741e4c5_o.jpg


42
 
Thanks Towered for your hard work. I very much like the streetwall created by the serrano and Tapestry buildings, what a huge improvement over the food basics store and parking lot. Hard to believe the outcry against these buildings. I agree with your views regarding the north side of Dundas. Is there any way to press for its redevelopment?
 
Thanks for those photos. I'm never in that part of town so it's nice to see what's happening
 
Michael Power Place and Dundas

Two points to add ...... 1) the Pemberton project "Port Royal Place" on Michael Power Place will have two more towers (30 storey range) after the one they are working on now is completed. 2) the "stupid" park with the buildings in the background is actually something the city requested and it is a public park....doesn't belong to the Port Royal complex. Quite frankly, once the new condos go up in that area and it intensifies (perhaps, by development of the north side of Dundas) I think the park as it matures will be a welcome green "square" for the area, imho.
 
Great pictures of my part of town. :) In fact, I'm pretty sure I see my neighbour's van in one of them!

Thank you. I really enjoyed those photos.
 
Thanks guys - it's my pleasure to be able to contribute to this dynamic forum in any way that I can.

Interchage42: Thanks for those project names, and I agree about James Club - it would go a long way toward urbanizing the area. The Humbertown plaza has way more parking space than it needs as well, particularly those lots sandwiched between the Kingsway and Royal York. I envision a wonderful streetwall of mid-rise infill going there. Apparently there's a rumour that those awful 60's cube apartments just north of the plaza in the Kingsway and Anglesey area are going to be redeveloped as well.

notyouagain: I agree that those buildings on Dundas really did turn out well, at least as far as street presence is concerned. Their example should be repeated in all future developments. Once some shops open up there I imagine it attaining a nice urban vibrancy rarely seen in this part of the city, and a great continuation of Islington Village. As for the north side, well, I wouldn't really get my hopes up too much. I fear that the close proximity of those detached homes and the ensuing NIMBY onslaught will vanquish any noble efforts put forth in the name of urbanity.

ceaz40: That's great news that another two 30+ storey towers are scheduled for the site! I didn't know that. Am I correct in assuming that they'll also be built at the south end of the property at Bloor? And you make a valid point about the park, but it just seems like a very boring, uninspired park. They should at least plant many more trees.

adma: Great point. Certainly an interesting design, including the garage. The only problem is that it's only visible from above (like in that google shot) - from street level you'd never know it's like that, which is unfortunate.
 
Michael Power Place

hey Towered, yes the two 30 plus towers are to go down at the south end of Michael Power Place up the embankment from Bloor. I lived in the first lower rise stand alone that they built there for 4 years. Nice building inside and out for the money and I made money on it. They aren't the most inspired in design, but they are not obnoxious either. Big problem coming though that I could foresee. All those towers and Michael Power dead ends at a park on the south end. When I left, the congestion from the five buildings and the townhouses across the street was making it all but impossible to get out to work in the morning between residents, construction vehicles and city maintenance/garbage trucks. That street really needs to be somehow continued to Bloor. Fortunately, a year after I moved in to the "Pemberton Palaces", I bought a loft at Robert Watson and moved there last October....friends that still live there complain the congestion is getting worse already....imagine when they finish the the current building then add two more 30 plus towers on that small dead end street. I agree with you on the park....definitely needs more trees....they attempted to leave open space so kids could play soccer...it's hardly big enough of a park to support that.
 
Apparently there's a rumour that those awful 60's cube apartments just north of the plaza in the Kingsway and Anglesey area are going to be redeveloped as well.

I actually find that a little unfortunate; they're far from glam (and more 50s than 60s, other than the point block overlooking Humbertown), but they're kinda cozy in their "shabby Toronto" way--and given the neighbourhood, I fear something along the lines of the NW Donway quadrant in Don Mills, i.e. schlocky condo-narcissistic to the max.

The fact that they exist at all is a classic enlightened-50s-suburban-planning instance of mixing a little affordable multiple housing in with the upper-middle-class swank--maybe by shotgun, but, what the hey.
 
Port Royal

ceaz40,

Wondering if you have any tips (complex or community) for someone moving into the Islington Village area next year. I'm actually moving into the Port Royal place that's going up next year (Promenade). At the moment we're living right at Square One so this will be a bit of a change--one I welcome as I enjoy the city more than the spread out GTA. I'm glad to hear your view of the development was generally positive.

Towered, I enjoyed the photos. I can appreciate your feelings about the design--I agree to some extent as I find them a bit dull if inoffensive. I chose the place more for the location/cost ratio than aesthetics, but it wouldn't be one of my top designs. Unfortunately there seems to be a bell curve at work when considering aesthetic quality in condo designs across the GTA.

Brian
 
I noticed yesterday that a crew was chopping down a bunch of large trees behind the James Club sales centre, so it looks like it won't be long now before construction begins.

ceaz40: Glad to hear that space will be filled with a couple of tall towers. I was dreading the idea that all that space would just wind up being another useless park or underground garage entrance. I agree with you that the developer really screwed up the street layout though. Unfortunately, there's no way to connect Michael Power road to Bloor because the underpass is right there. They should have had the road curve to the west to connect with Bloor where the traffic light is by the police station, but that would have made too much sense. Instead you have to take another L shaped road that goes between the townhomes. I'm assuming they did this to discourage through-traffic but it looks like they shot themselves in the foot.

adma: I can appreciate the planning philosophy behind those 50's Humbertown blocks, and I'm usually the last person advocating removal of historic built form in Toronto (god knows we've lost, and are continuing to lose, enough of it), but when it comes to these dreary looking buildings I simply can't manufacture any sympathy. I've always considered them to be virtually the ugly epitome of architectural laziness, and were mistake from the start. They remind me of Regent Park, and i'm kind of amazed that they never turned into ghetto. Actually the new plan for Regent Park might be a good inspiration of what could be done here as well.
 

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