The Village by High Park, shows it's street presence

The options for homes condo building closest to Keele St. is  showing what the new buildings shear scale will mean to the stretch of Keele St. directly in front of the development.

No real setback from the street appears to be present that will allow for stop and talk on the Keele St. side, which could be a good thing as Keele St. in this area is really becoming a pass through arterial road in a big way. Hopefully the new east - west alignments of the  two new building fronts will  result in a new role for "hill road" that existed on the site for so long. If new retail at the base of the building is put in it could help bring the area directly into the community.

blogto article on the Victoria-Royce Presbyterian Church

blogto has an article concerning the fate of a number of church's  in the Junction. The artcle does not offer much in deapth of discussion about the situation but does give a strong clear overview.

toblog link [opens in new window]

Options for Homes - Village by High Park railroad retaining visable

The shored and retaining wall holding back the railroad track bedding can be clearly seen in these images now. In other developments today they have started pushing soil fill from the back of the lot into an area that was the basement of the old CanTire store.

So what  happens next will be most interesting. Will they the remove and replace the retaining wall, refit it, rework
it or leave it?

Posted by Robert

Windermere by The Lake condo project

This condo project has views, you must say between Grenadier Pond, Sunnyside and High Park. It has a tower and townhouses. The developer calls the tower a soaring and contemporary. Which they must be basing on all the glass, ok the can have the soaring bit and even the contemporary, yet is that enough for what they had to start with - a great location with 3 wonderful views, some noise from the major road, and room for quite a few townhouses.
When such a good site as this becomes a good design rather than an excellent design encompassing all the possibilities of the area encoded into the design and matched to the wishes and not just the standard needs of prospective buyers, some wondering should occur.
Is it the lack of thought and action on the developer or is it the weakness of the condo buying public, who may be unwilling to purchase a unit in a building that is greater in whole if there is some risk attached to the design.

The town homes in this project do not suffer from the problems described above of the tower they appear from the artist rendering to be well thought out and will be useful and fun to live in. Useful top floor decks will provide and the in ease of living the stacked design of the units.


One of their construction images JUL 08 Windermere by The Lake

Less urban fringe growth affects inner WTO Councillors wards

Driving west on the Gardiner Expressway you can four condo cranes south of the roadway, Councillors in WTO really need to look fast and hard at the issue of the quick rise in numbers of the condos, as it will greatly affect all residents. Condominiums will be greater in number in housing units as compared to standalone homes. Yet right now the city is orientated to single standalone homes followed by apartment blocks. Is the WTO going to be ready with services for the change?

Backgrounder info: click links below

A few days ago the Globe published story - For the first time in generations, developers are now building as much housing inside city limits as they are in outlying suburbs, also it states the age of urban sprwal in Toronto may be over.

This article [opens in new window] from the magazine Canadian Architect speaks to the issue of what's being built doesn't challenge any precepts of basic housing. yet the City of Toronto is changing at a rapid rate.

Victoria-Royce Presbyterian Church on Annette

Picture credit - R English 2008

The Victoria-Royce Presbyterian Church Lofts on Annette Street in the Junction will soon become 35 residential lofts, hopefully with as much of the church left as the developer can leave without annoying his buyers, with just too much history. It must be a struggle for the developer who probably wants to use the character of the building to sell the units but also provide the prospective buyers with spacious public areas. A 70% sold sign is outside the building now so maybe they are nearing the that magic number where the funding providers and the developer feel safe enough to start.

options for homes - construction track

The Options for Homes pile driver has moved to the back of the lot now, at the top of the hill and appears to be pushing some piles into the ground, probably to shore up the soil to create the basement foundations and parking areas for the new buildings. The newsworthy part of this whole operation is the old CanTire building still stands.   Most of the time in condo development  the existing building demo is completed before the pile are driven for the new building shoring. This project may be beginning to fast track now, hopefully.

Village by the Park - arrival of a medium sized rotary drilling rig

Today you can see on the Options for Homes site at Keele St. and Dundas St. the erected pile driver Bauer BG 24H medium sized rotary drilling rig in the parcel of land near the tracks at the lower end of the sloped site.  Wondering if this is a little early as most of the old Canadian Tire Store remains standing still. Could it be they need shoring up on the slope down from the abutting tracks simply to take down the existing building?

Development Watch - old Keele Street Canadian Tire Store

The junction devoid of condo product - a sure hit for all - thoughts on junction condo development

Deconstruction of the old Keele Street Canadian Tire Store is slowly moving along, rather slowly actually, with many days of seemingly nothing happening, hopefully they will keep to their build schedule as this affordable condo project will greatly change the character - for the better of the Keele St. and Dundas St. corner for the better.

In terms of anticipated success though, it surely is a win situation, even for a for-profit builder to have taken on.  The current project is being developed by a not-for-profit developer (Options for Homes).  The location of the former Canadian Tire Store and further back in time an A&P grocery store is selectivity brilliant, not only for its junction address, but for the views afforded by it's location south to High Park and East to the core of the city. Also the site is a sloped, a wonderful design feature in terms of walking to, out and around the building. Hopefully they make great use of this feature with their landscaping.  Another reason the project is welcomed to the neighborhood is because it replaces an empty building of no real importance to the history of the community, a building which sat vacant for years. The building's units in terms of size are favorable with other condo projects of the same size and are reasonably affordable at a time when gigantic and expensive condos are in unprecedented demand in many parts of the west of Toronto.

So why not build even more aggressively, in Toronto's hot condo market, where there are teenage and budding condo developers peeking around most corners, huddled in corner Starbucks uttering phrases such as -  we could do that a lot better, just look at that, they should have..., maybe the not for profit should try a different model, one of self contracting the construction of the building, A well executed and thought out process to do a self managed construction process  would lower the prices of the condos in their development.  Self contracting worked for O&Y and  Tridel developments at their beginnings. Using a builder adds cost, of course the builder for The Village by High Park - Deltera is a good builder - a for profit builder, who then subcontracts out most of the work to other contractors. Part of the Tridel Group of Companies, Deltera is a prime residential builder with cutting edge building technology and a history of building innovations which any developer - especially a not for profit should fully mine, to archive the best possible building for their value conscious customers. Rather than simply hire Deltera for it's concrete and plumbing etc management skills hire them to push the limits - carefully - for affordable housing, wouldn't Deltera - deep down  be happier along with the future residents.

Posted by Robert

1 condo moves to built stage while opens sales at Lakeshore

Picture credit - David 2008

One condo sales centre is being demolished to make way for the condo tower to be built there on Lakeshore Rd. just west of Park Lawn. And just up the street on Park Lawn opposite Christie's bakery (Kraft) another defunct warehouse building is converted into a sales centre for a condo tower