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Cole Condos in Toronto
July 14, 2009

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WILLIAM CONWAY/PROGRESS PHOTOGRAPHY

Exterior work has reached the top floors at One Cole condominiums, the first phase one of the Regent Park revitalization project in Toronto, Ont. Daniels Corporation has completion of the project scheduled for the end of 2009. The work includes one nine-storey building with 91 units and one 19-storey building with 201 units. The two buildings will be connected by a one-storey podium and there will also be retail, a fitness centre, café bar and lounge. The project was designed by Diamond & Schmitt Architects Inc. and Graziani + Corazza Architects Inc. Consultants are: Sigmund Soudack & Associates Inc. (structural) and LKM Consulting Engineers Inc. (mechanical/electrical). Subtrades include: Faga Group-Polvian Construction Ltd. (drainage); Edvac Contracting Ltd. (formwork); Cooltech Air Systems Ltd.; Speedy Electric Co. Ltd.; University Plumbing & Heating; C & A Tedesco Waterproofing; Toro Aluminum (glass/glazing); and ThyssenKrupp Elevator Ltd.


http://www.dcnonl.com/article/id34488
 
thanks for all these updates you tracked down Solaris! Its interesting to read who all the various trades are that are working on these jobs... its easy to see how construction is such a huge employer in Toronto.
 
from today's Globe....

Daniels Finds a Winning Formula

BY TERRENCE BELFORD

Last updated on Friday, Jul. 31, 2009 03:11AM EDT


In an astonishing turnaround, new condo sales soared in June. RealNet Canada Inc. reports 1,706 sales for the month, off just 9 per cent from the same period last year and more than double the sales reported in May.

It may be premature to say the new condo housing slump is over, says RealNet president George Carras, but sales are a strong indicator that buyer confidence is beginning to return and that builders have re-tooled their offerings to better meet market demand.

In fact, one veteran developer – The Daniels Corporation – has made an extraordinarily bold move. For the past four years in its low-rise homes it has done a 180-degree turn from the usual process of selling then starting construction when 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the units are sold.

Daniels has built first and then gone to market when the homes were just 30 days away from completion. Now, for the first time, it has tried the same technique with high-rise condos to great success.

The busiest markets in the Greater Toronto Area were Downtown West with 343 sales and Downtown East with 290, but the action in those two markets was as different as night and day. In Downtown West, which stretches from Bloor to the Lakeshore and the west side of University to Dufferin Street, sales were evenly spread with 34 of the 51 projects reporting sales. Compare that with the dark days of February when only 19 of them sold any units.

In Downtown East, which runs from Bloor to the Gardiner Expressway and from the east side of Church Street to the Don Valley, a whopping 248 sales came from a single project: One Cole on the northeast corner of Parliament and Dundas Streets.

One Cole is the Daniels Corp. project. It is the first phase of the redevelopment of Regent Park and consists of a nine-storey and a 19-storey tower with 292 suites, 10 of which are two-storey townhouses at the rear facing Cole Street. Martin Blake, Daniels's vice-president says the project went on sale in early June and by the end of the month, 243 suites had been snapped up by eager buyers. They get to move in this November.

The reason for such blazing sales activity? It is a combination of factors, he says. First was location. Second was the appeal to renters. They could buy a suite and carry the costs for about the same as the rent they are paying and know for certain they can move in late this fall.

Third was price. The suites from the 400-square-foot studios to the 1,230-square-foot townhouses sold for just over $400 a square foot or $87 below the average price per square foot in the Downtown East area.

That considerable price savings can be traced back to the way One Cole was developed and marketed. Daniels's approach eliminated the need for two years or more of marketing costs to drive sales to the level acceptable to lenders. It built and then had a brief and intensive sales campaign. Six weeks later the project is 84 per cent sold, says Mr. Blake.

Daniels could also accurately project construction costs because it was building in the here and now and not trying to guess how much construction costs would rise over the three to five year period it normally takes to develop a high-rise project.

Daniels can do it because it has a long track record and a great relationship with its lenders, says Don Pugh, the company's vice-president in charge of low rise. He has overseen seven of these build and then sell projects in the past four years and the result is always the same: A speedy sellout and an equally quick move-in date.

“Now we usually start selling about 30 days before move-in date,†he says. “I once tried 10 days but the lawyers complained too much. They just couldn't handle the work in that short time frame.â€

The One Cole phenomenon follows on the heels of Daniels's astonishing success in May with a Mississauga project called FirstHome Eglinton West at Winston Churchill Boulevard and Eglinton Avenue West. The company put 157 stacked townhouses on sale at 10 a.m. May 23 and had sold them all by 6:10 p.m. that day.

Prices ranged from $154,400 to $276,900 for a one-bedroom unit and people camped out on the street in front of the sales office to get a chance to buy, Mr. Pugh says.

While he readily admits not many developers have the track record and strong relationships with lenders Daniels has, the concept of build then sell has a terrific psychological component.

“People drive by the site for months or, in the case of One Cole, years. They see the buildings going up but when they call and ask if they can buy, we tell them no, not yet,†he says. “You get this terrific buzz going; this great anticipation.â€

The success of One Cole has led Daniels to do its phase two at Regent Park the same way. Construction starts this fall on a series of townhouses at Cole and Oak streets, Mr. Blake says.

“We won't start selling those until they are substantially complee.â€
 
Scaled Model

thanks to ProjectEnd's leads to MBA Models

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Daily Commercial News

TOWNHOUSE DEVELOPMENT
Proj: 9091186-5
Toronto, Metro Toronto Reg ON
NEGOTIATED/PLANS COMPLETE
Regent Park Redevelopment Blocks 11 & 12 Townhouses, Oak St, M4M
$15,000,000 est


Start: November, 2009

Complete: May, 2011

Note: Prequalification of Sub trades closed April 14 2009 at the Const Mgr. Invited tenders will be issued mid/late October, 2009 Site work is underway. Construction start is expected November 2009. Further update November, 2009.

Project: concrete slab on grade foundation, wood structural frame, fuel fired heating system, 02550; natural gas distribution, proposed construction of 16 townhouse units in four structures. These will be built between blocks 11 and 12 of the Regent Park redevelopment, report numbers 9077202 and 9077194. Block 14 can be followed under report number 9098204.

Scope: 88,600 square feet; 3 storeys; 1 storey below grade; 4 structures; 16 units; 4 acres

Development: New

Category: Apartment bldgs

First report Fri Oct 17, 2008. Last report Thu Jun 25, 2009.
This report Mon Aug 31, 2009.


http://www.dailycommercialnews.com/cgi-bin/top10.pl?rm=show_top10_project&id=55b168309ff7d266c154890e09b6e806fc2691c8&projectid=9091186&region=ontario
 
City Planning Final Report

For consideration by Toronto and East York Community Council on Sept 15/09:

Toronto Community Housing Corporation has made application for zoning by-law amendments for the Regent Park revitalization area. Within the Regent Park Secondary Plan area the amendments are to allow the addition of “live/work unit†at grade as a permitted use in the residential districts (R4A), an increase in height for Type “B†Towers from 75 metres to 77 metres and the removal of the reference to the number of “storeys†leaving maximum heights in place. In addition, for Phase 2 lands only, there are proposed amendments to the tower location and the height maps.

This report reviews and recommends approval of the application to amend the Zoning By-law.

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2009/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-23197.pdf
 
I like how the red and grey coloured D+S buildings on the north east corner of Dundas and Parliament now bring the red, grey and buff coloured Regent Park Community health centre on the south east corner, also by that firm, subtly into the fold.
 
I like the way these are turning out and I'm sure this is really going to transform the whole East side.

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If I was further along in life, this is where I would buy. The residents here are going to get a very nice return on their investment in a decade or so.
 
Torontovibe - Thanks so much for posting these! I'm always excited to see updates because I rarely actually make it out to that intersection to see it for myself.
Does anyone know how the interior work is progressing?
 
Cointrin - welcome to UT - we hope your flight from Geneva was agreeable!

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Jack Diamond has dissapointed me here. His block (the red brick portion) is not offensive per se, but just could have easily been better. The balconies scream 80s to me, and not in a cool way.

I've been trying to make peace with it all summer, seeing it in person to make my decision and... yeah. I LOVE his firm's work, but not in this case.

The project as a whole is amazing though, and I am pleased to see the progress they've made so far.
 
FloorPlans

I am moving to One Oak, and this wednesday i am getting the floor plans, once i do InshaAllah, i will post it on this site, feel free to look at it (once its on)
 
Cool, that'd be great!

Is One Oak the cubist building going up north of One Cole?
 

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