Toronto 150 Symes Road | ?m | 2s

yonderbean

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Looks like the old Symes Road Incinerator near Weston Road & St Clair has been given a new lease on life. All I know is what's on the notice below - 11,100 sq ft of employment space and the addition of four new buildings.

The city website website has this notice that a bylaw was passed declaring the building to be of cultural heritage value.

Edit: found this pdf at Build Toronto.



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I googled Symesbridge and pulled these images from this pdf.

Could turn into something amazing. The road leading to it off St Clair is pretty rough, and takes you past the meat packing plants which would be neighbours of the project.

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It's a wonderful Art Deco landmark that could make for excellent office or studio space. I wrote this article about its significance and nominated it for heritage designation after doing some research. Heritage Preservation Services did great work with their report to council on why it should be designated. It would have otherwise probably been demolished without a second thought like many other historic industrial buildings in the Stock Yards area; it was an obscure industrial building in a district that hadn't received much investment in decades. I was concerned that Build Toronto would sell it to a developer before it was designated, but the agency worked to find a buyer who would see the value in heritage. I look forward to the restoration and adaptive reuse.
 
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It's a wonderful Art Deco landmark that could make for excellent office or studio space. I wrote this article about its significance and nominated it for heritage designation after doing some research. Heritage Preservation Services did great work with their report to council on why it should be designated. It would have otherwise probably been demolished without a second thought like many other historic industrial buildings in the Stock Yards area; it was an obscure industrial building in a district that hadn't received much investment in decades. I was concerned that Build Toronto would sell it to a developer before it was designated, but the agency worked to find a buyer who would see the value in heritage. I look forward to the restoration and adaptive reuse.

Deco? What's Deco Labels & Tags (the Ford family business) have to do with this? Oh, Rob Ford and trash...

Sorry, couldn't resist.
:cool:
 
I've heard from local residents that this is set to become a Parkour gym. I don't know for sure if this is the actual building but that would be interesting use of the space.
 
Junction Craft Brewing is restoring the Art Deco landmark as part of its new craft brewery and tap room project:

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Source: Junction Craft Brewing

This expansion means that there will be two craft breweries neighbouring each other (Junction Craft Brewing and Rainhard Brewing). All in all, these projects hint at new economic development and community revitalization in an area once characterized by decay and stagnation. It's great to see the original striped facade of the Symes Road Destructor being restored. Years of pollution and graffiti had marred it significantly.
 
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I'de never seen this before. It's beautiful. I'm so happy it wasn't demolished and has been restored. Nice to see good news!
 
I have photos of this place from 14 years ago, when I first discovered it. Marvellous building. Will be good to see it cleaned up and activated again, albeit in a different guise.
 

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