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222 Jarvis Street LEED retrofit (former Sears office building, 9s, WZMH).

O

Observer Walt

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The sale of this huge office building has been reported. The purchaser is the Ontario Govt. (Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal). Given the location of the property immediately beside the Ryerson campus, I'm wondering if this is intended for future expansion of the campus eastward? Do any of the Ryerson people here have any insight into this?

Details: Building = 432,000 square feet, land area = 3.28 acres. The property extends from Mutual Street to Jarvis Street, and north from Dundas Street up to an existing Ryerson building which is situated opposite the end of Gould Street at Mutual Street. It includes a large vacant area (surface parking lot), and underground garage.
 
Maybe this just means that PIR is moving out of 777 Bay.

But you might be right, perhaps this will eventually become Ryerson property. If that is the case it would make a massive expansion to the campus. Does this mean the upsidedown pyramid is not long for this world? We can only hope.
 
Call me crazy but I like this building. Maybe they can do a glass addition on the parking lot to reduce its bulkiness. Oh yeah, and change the colour.
 
for anyone not familiar with the building, this is it.

DSC00063.jpg
 
it honestly looks like it could be a penitentary... that being said, if they could soften up the streetlevel and add something to compliment and detract from the existing building, I guess we can save it from a nuke.
 
I kind of like the building....it's the street-killing surface lot that sucks. A few well-placed interventions on this stretch of Jarvis could help connect the two portions that are actually not bad--above College and the (very nice) below-Queen part. The Jarv/Dundas intersection, though, is heinous and this lot (and the strip mall) are a big reason why.
 
Gawd help me, I'm rather fond of this one, always have been.
The lot to the south - and dead laneway to the north - have always been problematic.
Although making the base less forbidding and more lovely won't be impossible on the west, north and east sides, any new building put on that south lot that tries to ameliorate, ignore or integrate this beastie is going to have a hell of a time.
Not just from the scale and unusual massing of it - but the reductive and powerful use of materials as well. It will be interesting to see what eventually happens around it.
 
I LOVE this building. When I was taking night classes at Ryerson, this is where a lot of people would park. The parking lot is huge, so there would be a lot of room to expand for Ryerson, or whomever is going to use it.

It would be great for Ryerson as it has large floor plates and it even looks like a 70s university building. I think it would immediately become the most architecturally interesting building on campus.

I wonder where Sears is moving?
 
I like this building too and yes, its surroundings and empty lots around it have done it much disservice. It will be interesting to see what new uses, if any, are made of it (although I suspect that it will remain offices and not be handed over to Ryerson. I have a source and will check and see).
 
I checked my source. He told me that the rumour of Ryerson moving into the building has been around for years but he has not heard anything under the Levy administration.
 
This building could be softened by adding a sheer glass wall to it decending from flush up against the top level and straight down. That could create a nice atrium, and make the building look like a glass box. I'm thinking Hayden Planetarium. I wonder if that would be possible???

I cant see why else the Ont Government would buy this building other than to use it for Ryerson. Isnt the government getting out of owning it's own buildings and renting instead? PLUS, there is a move out of downtown for all new offices. North York is the future of provincial government offices.
 
I like this building. Brutalism was a genuine part of our recent architectural history, and while I would not want to see only Brutalist buildings, this one is one of the better examples.

I like to see variety, which this building is a part of.

Bill
 
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