ThomasJ
Active Member
Chaz is in the middle of the "height ridge" though. It's a 39 storey approval surrounded by 45s and (soon to be) 50s.
Five is located off of the Charles strip and should be in line with the Nicholas/2-8 Gloucesters of the world. It's a 45 storey approval surrounded by 30 and 35s...and now seeks an additional 5 storeys. just hard to justify and IMO cannot point to the Charles St. ridge for comps.
Ramako
Moderator
What is the 50s on Charles that you're referring to?
ThomasJ
Active Member
42 Charles aka Casa II. asking 58 likely will end up around 50.
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Doubt that...they will get 55-58 and maybe ask for more when in marketing....since when do proposals have to follow the same height as approved/existing buildings.
ThomasJ
Active Member
Doubt that...they will get 55-58 and maybe ask for more when in marketing....since when do proposals have to follow the same height as approved/existing buildings.
thank you for further substantiating my point above. point is that if Five gets an additional five stories it will be way out of wack given its location outside of the height ridge. Ramako, do you follow or not?
Ramako
Moderator
Yeah, I assumed you were referring to Casa 2, but I was wondering whether you had some inside info or were just speculating.
ThomasJ
Active Member
no just speculation. same as Automation really but he is more bullish than i am in terms of where they'll end up (he says 55-58, i say 50, either way it's a lot, which is my point).
thecharioteer
Senior Member
Article in today's Post:
http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/1...street-to-the-city’s-best-new-but-old-condos/
Follow the cobblestoned street to the city’s best new-but-old condos
By Suzanne Wintrob
They say everything old is new again, and that’s certainly the case when it comes to condominium development in downtown Toronto.
With vacant lots few and far between, particularly in the downtown core, developers have been sizing up heritage properties and designing alluring projects around them that combine nostalgia with modern living. From 19th-century factories and churches to warehouses and mansions, it seems that nothing is off limits to enthusiastic developers — as long as they respect Toronto’s past and retain the integrity of the historic site.
“There seems to be no end to the number of applications for condominium projects in the downtown area,” says Mary MacDonald, acting manager, Heritage Preservation Services at the City of Toronto’s planning department. “It’s a very popular choice, largely because in the downtown core there are so many heritage buildings.”
One particular residential project that’s turning heads is Five Condos. Located at 5 St. Joseph St. in the Yonge and Wellesley area, Five is being billed as one of the largest façade retention projects in the city.
When the project is complete in late 2014, Five will comprise a 45-storey modern glass tower atop a four-storey podium that was once the 1905 Gothic Revival warehouse belonging to Rawlinson Cartage, one of the city’s largest moving and storage companies. The podium will house heritage lofts, a rooftop garden with 13,000 square feet of outdoor amenities and 10,000 sq. ft. of indoor amenities. The brick façade on adjacent St. Nicholas Street will be rebuilt but still retain the spirit of its Victorian-Edwardian architecture, with the cobblestoned St. Nicholas Street adding to the quaintness. ERA Architects is restoring the warehouse façade that will become the condo’s entry.
Another five heritage buildings fronting on Yonge Street — once the home of Rawlinson’s offices and now the site of the Five presentation centre — are also being restored. Back in the day, there were narrow, flat-roofed, three-storey storefronts in a warehouse style at the south end of the row. The three northernmost buildings were once sloped-roofed with two storeys, with the centre building getting an Art Deco overhaul in the late 1920s to include a flat roof and two extra storeys. Once transformed, the five buildings will become Five’s Yonge Street Collection of 14 one- and two-storey residences situated on the second and third floors, with a collection of upscale retail on the ground floor.
Mod Developments and Graywood Developments, together with ERA Architects and Hariri Pontarini Architects, are doing their darndest to keep as much of the original as possible, using special techniques to remove years of paint, and cleaning or replacing the brick as necessary. In the true spirit of preservation, a steel frame support system is currently suspending the entire façade over the excavation pit until construction is complete. The goal, say the developers, is to preserve the Rawlinson site in keeping with the original footprint.
“If this project was somewhere in the east end or the west end [of Toronto], I don’t think it would have attracted so much attention,” says MOD president and CEO Gary Switzer. “We ended up winning BILD’s Building of the Year this year. I think a lot of what appealed to people is that it was right on Yonge Street and it was like a preview of what the city could look like with this kind of attention to history. And the modern architecture that [the architects] are doing is so excellent.”
Ms. MacDonald is a big fan of Five. She lumps Toronto’s growing crop of commercial and residential developers into two groups: those “who routinely propose façadism,” and those who are dedicated to incorporating heritage features into the actual construction. Given her job, she much prefers church or factory conversion or projects like Five that go beyond the façade to seriously blend the old with the new. Though keeping a building’s façade can make for attractive eye candy, she says, it shouldn’t end there.
“In my perspective, because I’m all about conservation, the buildings should be retaining their integrity,” she explains. “You should be able to understand them, not just as cladding on something new.
Some of the condos downtown will keep the façades, and mostly it’s a new building with just an old face,” Ms. MacDonald says. “That doesn’t actually represent a high standard of heritage conservation, though some people might find it interesting from a design perspective.”
Ms. MacDonald is particularly pleased about Five’s debut, especially given the current dilapidated state of that particular strip of Yonge Street. Five is “a really interesting project,” she says, and one that’s extremely important to the city.
“Yonge Street is one of our main historic main streets but there’s a lot of clutter and signs and shops at the pedestrian level of Yonge Street that have really overtaken the perception of these buildings as really beautiful late 19th century buildings. … [Five’s developers] are keeping all the exterior elements of the heritage property, adding their own tower, and they’re going the extra mile to make sure that the commercial character of Yonge Street as a main street — with a certain 19th-century character that we’ve kind of lost sight of these days — is restored. We’re hoping that will trigger a conservation movement and a restoration movement up the street.”
Having retail at grade is also something the city is big on, though Ms. MacDonald says it’s sometimes a challenge for heritage buildings because today’s modern stores demand more space and bigger windows to lure shoppers. With Five, she says, Torontonians not only get the pleasure of the historical warehouse reworked but also “commercial storefronts and a full restoration of those exteriors.”
It also creates mood. Ryan Love, a heritage architect at ERA, says the melding together of modern, infill, existing façades and elevations will create an intriguing streetscape. Low-rise row houses will share the block with mid-rise and high-rise residences. Residential, industrial and retail will live in harmony. There will be noisy streets beside quiet streets, and weathered historic brick sharing the spotlight with sleek modern glass. Says Mr. Love: “With the design, we wanted to work with that.”
http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/1...street-to-the-city’s-best-new-but-old-condos/
Follow the cobblestoned street to the city’s best new-but-old condos
By Suzanne Wintrob
They say everything old is new again, and that’s certainly the case when it comes to condominium development in downtown Toronto.
With vacant lots few and far between, particularly in the downtown core, developers have been sizing up heritage properties and designing alluring projects around them that combine nostalgia with modern living. From 19th-century factories and churches to warehouses and mansions, it seems that nothing is off limits to enthusiastic developers — as long as they respect Toronto’s past and retain the integrity of the historic site.
“There seems to be no end to the number of applications for condominium projects in the downtown area,” says Mary MacDonald, acting manager, Heritage Preservation Services at the City of Toronto’s planning department. “It’s a very popular choice, largely because in the downtown core there are so many heritage buildings.”
One particular residential project that’s turning heads is Five Condos. Located at 5 St. Joseph St. in the Yonge and Wellesley area, Five is being billed as one of the largest façade retention projects in the city.
When the project is complete in late 2014, Five will comprise a 45-storey modern glass tower atop a four-storey podium that was once the 1905 Gothic Revival warehouse belonging to Rawlinson Cartage, one of the city’s largest moving and storage companies. The podium will house heritage lofts, a rooftop garden with 13,000 square feet of outdoor amenities and 10,000 sq. ft. of indoor amenities. The brick façade on adjacent St. Nicholas Street will be rebuilt but still retain the spirit of its Victorian-Edwardian architecture, with the cobblestoned St. Nicholas Street adding to the quaintness. ERA Architects is restoring the warehouse façade that will become the condo’s entry.
Another five heritage buildings fronting on Yonge Street — once the home of Rawlinson’s offices and now the site of the Five presentation centre — are also being restored. Back in the day, there were narrow, flat-roofed, three-storey storefronts in a warehouse style at the south end of the row. The three northernmost buildings were once sloped-roofed with two storeys, with the centre building getting an Art Deco overhaul in the late 1920s to include a flat roof and two extra storeys. Once transformed, the five buildings will become Five’s Yonge Street Collection of 14 one- and two-storey residences situated on the second and third floors, with a collection of upscale retail on the ground floor.
Mod Developments and Graywood Developments, together with ERA Architects and Hariri Pontarini Architects, are doing their darndest to keep as much of the original as possible, using special techniques to remove years of paint, and cleaning or replacing the brick as necessary. In the true spirit of preservation, a steel frame support system is currently suspending the entire façade over the excavation pit until construction is complete. The goal, say the developers, is to preserve the Rawlinson site in keeping with the original footprint.
“If this project was somewhere in the east end or the west end [of Toronto], I don’t think it would have attracted so much attention,” says MOD president and CEO Gary Switzer. “We ended up winning BILD’s Building of the Year this year. I think a lot of what appealed to people is that it was right on Yonge Street and it was like a preview of what the city could look like with this kind of attention to history. And the modern architecture that [the architects] are doing is so excellent.”
Ms. MacDonald is a big fan of Five. She lumps Toronto’s growing crop of commercial and residential developers into two groups: those “who routinely propose façadism,” and those who are dedicated to incorporating heritage features into the actual construction. Given her job, she much prefers church or factory conversion or projects like Five that go beyond the façade to seriously blend the old with the new. Though keeping a building’s façade can make for attractive eye candy, she says, it shouldn’t end there.
“In my perspective, because I’m all about conservation, the buildings should be retaining their integrity,” she explains. “You should be able to understand them, not just as cladding on something new.
Some of the condos downtown will keep the façades, and mostly it’s a new building with just an old face,” Ms. MacDonald says. “That doesn’t actually represent a high standard of heritage conservation, though some people might find it interesting from a design perspective.”
Ms. MacDonald is particularly pleased about Five’s debut, especially given the current dilapidated state of that particular strip of Yonge Street. Five is “a really interesting project,” she says, and one that’s extremely important to the city.
“Yonge Street is one of our main historic main streets but there’s a lot of clutter and signs and shops at the pedestrian level of Yonge Street that have really overtaken the perception of these buildings as really beautiful late 19th century buildings. … [Five’s developers] are keeping all the exterior elements of the heritage property, adding their own tower, and they’re going the extra mile to make sure that the commercial character of Yonge Street as a main street — with a certain 19th-century character that we’ve kind of lost sight of these days — is restored. We’re hoping that will trigger a conservation movement and a restoration movement up the street.”
Having retail at grade is also something the city is big on, though Ms. MacDonald says it’s sometimes a challenge for heritage buildings because today’s modern stores demand more space and bigger windows to lure shoppers. With Five, she says, Torontonians not only get the pleasure of the historical warehouse reworked but also “commercial storefronts and a full restoration of those exteriors.”
It also creates mood. Ryan Love, a heritage architect at ERA, says the melding together of modern, infill, existing façades and elevations will create an intriguing streetscape. Low-rise row houses will share the block with mid-rise and high-rise residences. Residential, industrial and retail will live in harmony. There will be noisy streets beside quiet streets, and weathered historic brick sharing the spotlight with sleek modern glass. Says Mr. Love: “With the design, we wanted to work with that.”
drum118
Superstar
Nov 12
Aaron
Active Member
Thanks drum! Such a fascinating jobsite.
androiduk
Senior Member
.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Thanks android.
Wonder if any of the timber and bricks from the old building will be salvaged?
AoD
Wonder if any of the timber and bricks from the old building will be salvaged?
AoD
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
The surgical removal of the back of that building makes me sad, I thought more of the warehouse was being saved than this. This is still a great project though and I would like to see more like it.
ThomasJ
Active Member
i agree...i had no idea they were lopping off that much of the building. i can't help but contrast this treatment to the 8 Gloucester project which is saving the entire similarly-sized red brick building on yonge. i'm not hating - Five is still a great project - but i'm just surprised that's all (much as you are it seems dt_toronto).