Toronto Emerald Park Condos | 128.92m | 40s | Bazis | Rosario Varacalli

[sunnyraytoronto]

I've actually seen bikes go through the lobby. Honestly, security is pretty lax at EP. They don't even seem to care that hordes of people constantly park in front of the lot exit.

Security at EmeraldPark is so lax, they're not even there sometimes,... with their "Out Patrolling Community" sign on front desk,....

The parking on sidewalk is technically a city parking enforcement issue since it's on the city right of way property. Now why Bazis designed the parking driveway, loading docks driveway to match the cement sidewalk perfectly,.... so nobody can tell what is what is beyond me. It's a very dangerous situation there where cars are routinely driving on the sidewalk thinking it's part of a driveway drop-off pick-up area.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

I've actually seen bikes go through the lobby. Honestly, security is pretty lax at EP.

Ahh,.... and here's a violator,... tsk, tsk, tsk,....

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

From Sept 17,...

The Conarch Group continues to make progress in completing the Tim Hortons. The construction is scheduled to be completed by Nov 22, 2016. The opening of this Tim Hortons will add to the long list of locations within close proximity in the NYCC.

View attachment 86431 View attachment 86432 View attachment 86433

Tim Hortons,... Opening November 22 - Not gonna happen,... these photos taken today looks like they're finishing up drywalling and HVAC, getting ready to start sanding drywall and start painting,.... notice the interior glass is now covered with plastic protection and floor covered with tarp,... still need painting, electrical, flooring, ceiling, lighting, counter, trimming, table chairs, kitchen equipment, etc,....

No firm date on opening of EmeraldPark TimHortons,... but likely another 3-4 weeks with a mid-December opening being a bit optimistic,... but should be before Christmas, so I'll be getting my TimHortons Christmas donut!

Good thing my TimHortons Christmas donut is made off-site,... given this EmeraldPark TimHortons' owner also owns & operates the SheppardCentre TimHortons and the Ultima-Condo TimHortons (as I recall),... I would avoid anything here made on-site

Canadians love TimHortons so most TimHortons usually get 4-4.5 out of 5 rating,.... 3/5 would be considered terrible for a TimHortons:
https://www.yelp.ca/search?find_desc=tim+horton&find_loc=north+york&start=0

SheppardCentre TimHortons got 1.5/5 on 10 reviews,... according to Yelp.ca rating - this is the worst TimHortons in Toronto,.... go through the reviews - it's mainly about bad service and poorly made coffee,...
https://www.yelp.ca/biz/tim-hortons-toronto-153

Thus, don't expect much at their new EmeraldPark TimHortons and you might be pleasantly surprise,.... expect it to be as good as an regular TimHortons then you'll likely be disappointed. And if they put in a self-ordering kiosk, use it!

 

[amnesiajune]

SheppardCentre TimHortons got 1.5/5 on 10 reviews,... according to Yelp.ca rating - this is the worst TimHortons in Toronto

On Google Maps it has a 3.7 out of 5 on 16 reviews. There are 17 stores on Yonge between Bloor and Steeles with enough reviews to show a rating, and they're all rated between 3.3 and 4.1. So it's pretty average, which is exactly my experience with it.

Just looking at the Yelp reviews you linked, it's obviously not a reliable link. One of the 1-star reviews starts with "Just went to Tim Hortons at 680 Sheppard". Another one complains about people smoking at outdoor seating that it doesn't have.

 

[pipolchap]

A Tim Hortons is a Tim Hortons is a Tim Hortons.

They're all the same to me and all their coffee tastes watered down, no matter the location. The Sheppard Centre one is fine! It being called "the worst in Toronto" doesn't make sense at all since the franchisor inspects franchisees for consistency. If it bothers you, just complain to head office. I'm thinking they'll dispatch the area manager to do a surprise inspection and maybe send you a coupon to buy more of their watered down coffee. That's how things work for large chains.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

On Sunday November 13, in response to Constructo's request I requested help from Councillor Filion's office and CityPlanning in getting EmeraldPark TTC subway entrance finally opened.

SunnyRay;
Have you contacted Councillor John Filion regarding the ongoing fiasco of the Poyntz Ave. subway tunnel? Not that he can strong-arm Bazis but every bit might help at this point to complete it sooner rather than later. I emailed him on Nov.6 but have not received a reply. Maybe he's looking into it, but it's always good to get some basic reply. I know he'll show up for a photo-op at the big ribbon cutting ceremony.
The opening is so close that I'm ready to dismantle the hoarding myself. Only a few wires to connect but that could take weeks or months as we've seen. I've asked staff to prepare signs stating "expected completion late DEC. 2016."

Friday morning I noticed a couple guys wearing black jackets working in the pedestrian tunnel - one was messing with the door lock for the hoarding,... I guess one of them was you,... I was the Chinese guy with glasses asking when this pedestrian tunnel will open,.... answer I got was "I don't know". Anyways, I noticed most of the handicap-accessible signage has been correctly removed and apparently I was wrong about the U-turn sign - it currently points the correct way
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...-rosario-varacalli.4829/page-133#post-1158464

Over the years CityPlanning, Councillor John Filion and his office staff have been made very well aware of our community annoyance and inconvenience from all the delays with Bazis Emerald Park development project. These issues include delay in LansingUnitedChurch community construction, Yonge Street lane reduction for pedestrian tunnel that went beyond schedule, final project not resembling rendering, constant stream of water tankers to empty their water reservoir, useful retail space that was supposed to be beneficial to the local community, LCBO not opening - that really got us pissed!, and of course the delayed TTC entrance forcing locals to cross Yonge Street at a dangerous intersection.

I sent the following email to Councillor Filion, his office staff responsible for development and infrastructure project, the current city planner responsible for EmeraldPark and the city planner formerly responsible for EmeraldPark who is now responsible for Bazis exhibit (200 Bloor West) & e-condo (8 Eglintion East) project - she would be able to "strong-arm Bazis" the most since she's most familiar with all of Bazis tricks and short-cuts at EmerldPark, that's probably why she was assigned to watch over Bazis at exhibit & e-condo! Also CC-ed my local ratepayers group. I would suggest you forward your original email to the same people, PM me if you need their email address, but it's very easy to find online,... for City Planner, look up the online development applications and the current city planner in charge is listed with the development



EmeraldPark TTC Subway Entrance - Bazis' Repeated Missed Re-Opening Deadlines

Greetings Councillor Filion, Catherine, Doug and Carla,

Note: CC West Lansing Homeowners Association


As you may remember Bazis Emerald Park and Tridel Hullmark Centre both received their City Planning Final Report in early 2010 and started their construction about the same time. Yet, the smaller scale Bazis Emerald Park project has been plagued with constant delays and missed deadlines, one of the most frustrating is the reopening of the TTC subway entrance on the northwest corner of Yonge Street and Poyntz Ave which was closed on "June 16, 2014" and originally schedule to reopen "early 2015":

By February 2015, the Tridel Hullmark Centre had already opened their second more technically challenging TTC Subway entrance at their North Tower on Sheppard Ave East which was delayed a year since the underground pedestrian tunnel had to be redesign not to interfere with the existing northbound Yonge to eastbound Sheppard wye subway turning tunnel under the public plaza of Hullmark Centre.
http://johnfilion.ca/new-subway-tunnel-opens-at-hullmark/

Meanwhile Bazis Emerald Park TTC subway entrance was no-where close to being complete so the "early 2015" reopening date was delayed until "end of July 2015", then "February 2016", then "late August 2016", then "late October 2016", then "late November 2016" and now I'm hearing it might be delayed further to "late December 2016" or beyond. An originally scheduled 9-month construction project is now 29-plus-months long and counting!
http://westlansing.ca/Local-News/Poyntz-Subway-Entrance-Delayed-Once-Again.aspx

The most frustrating part is for the past year, it's rare to see any workers on-site working at the Emerald Park TTC Subway entrance; it's obviously not a priority with this developer. Right now, the Emerald Park TTC subway entrance only need at most a few worker days of labour mainly to connect and test electrical wiring (like push button doors and sensors) and a final clean-up to be ready to re-open for the public. But instead of re-opening in a matter of days, they're likely to miss their currently displayed late November deadline and also their next late December deadline.

In the meantime, the local residents of West Lansing and the new residents of Emerald Park must access Tridel Hullmark Centre South Tower TTC subway entrance by crossing Yonge Street at the dangerously problematic intersection of Yonge and Poyntz Ave / Anndale Dr where pedestrian crossing path is routinely blocked by northbound Yonge traffic failing to clear the intersection. Now winter is once again approaching.


thanks,
_______

Here's an update,....

I was notified last week by Councillor Filion's office,... there's a "walk though" of the EmeraldPark TTC entrance last Friday likely by developer project management team and city staff (TTC, CityPlannning, City Inspectors, Fire Inspectors, etc,..) to document issues that still needs to be resolved and a timeline.

Besides the handful of wiring connection that I noticed,.... the main issue still seems to involve the Fire Safety system as Constructo stated last month,....
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...-rosario-varacalli.4829/page-133#post-1160970

But now instead of fire alarms, it's more specifically the fire warning system,.... you might notice (during the many false alarms) between Menkes Proctor&Gamble Building and TTC Poyntz subway turnstile entrance area there are warning alarm signage that flashes and announce "FIRE! Do Not Enter". They're also at Tridel HullmarkCentres 2 TTC subway entrances. On both sides of the Fire Doors,... thus, one side would warn "FIRE Do Not Enter" Building,... and the other side would warn "FIRE Do Not Enter" TTC Station,... This is the type of fire warning system they'll have between TTC station and EmeraldPark, thus, the two fire alarm systems still needs to be interconnected, programmed and tested.

At Menkes Proctor&Gamble building it's just a panel by the door,.... at Tridel HullmarkCentre North Tower, the fire warning panel is integrated into the right side of the TTC signage bar,...

Anyone who has ever done any basic project management in any industry knows this sort of stuff (system that must connect and communicate with other systems and require thorough testing) should have been handled ASAP in the project timeline instead of at the backend where they become project roadblocks affecting delivery.

Fire safety is a huge liability issue, so City won't issue occupancy permit until all fire safety issues are resolved. Right now, time for developer's compliance, city inspection and various city sign-offs - the late November opening as posted throughout TTC station and EmeraldPark is NOT happening,... some city staff ETA of 2 weeks for early December opening possible but optimistic,.... Councillor Filion's office ETA is about 3 weeks, so a mid-December opening is more likely,....

Problem is, if they miss the mid-December opening,... a lot of city staff start taking off for their Christmas break earlier than most folks,... so it'll become an issue of finding city staff for sign-offs,.... so missing mid-December opening by a couple of days could easily result in a mid-January opening,.... which would of course come close to my February 2017 opening prediction,... which I'm still keeping! ;p

Yes, I really do believe EmeraldPark developer Bazis really is that useless,.... why? Here's a link to LilianChan's post from September 10,... go though those photos of the EmeraldPark TTC entrance,...
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...-rosario-varacalli.4829/page-131#post-1148488

And these are photos taken 2 months later around November 10,.... this is what 2 months worth of work look like at a Bazis development!!! 2 months to relocate a couple signs higher up on the wall, patch repair and basic cleanup. As of last Friday, they've eliminated,.. err, I mean blacked-out,... all those Handicap Accessible "false advertisment" signage. BTW, the photo of the steel Fire Doors also shows black cable hanging from the ceiling,... likely for that Fire Safety warning panel that needs to be installed and programmed to pass fire inspection,...

This is the steel Fire Door,... and the black cable hanging from ceiling is likely for the missing Fire Warning Panel,...

 

[Bill123]

The food here is shaping up to be quite some combination.
A Jerk King is coming to one of the Yonge frontage units which makes 2 Caribbean joints in total opening here. Both Allwyn's and Jerk King have great followings. So far Emerald Park has Japanese, Vietnamese/Thai, American & Traditional Chinese, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Vegan, Bubble Tea, Fruit Juice, Western food, Tim Hortons and the 3 unknown food court units under construction. What was supposed to be an ethnic mall due to T&T has now turned into a very special multicultural mall that I don't think we see anywhere else.

The Teriyaki & Sushi unit has decided to lease/sell the unit. All but 2 units in the food court have been leased.

The food court entrance is now closed due to the wind a week ago. This has negatively affected food court business. Hope they implement sliding doors soon, flip-doors are way too weak for the winds that go on there. If they repair the existing doors with a similar flipping design the doors will for sure break again.

There are also 3 new retail stores coming soon in the mall. One is a coffee shop near the main entrance where Avis was supposed to be, second is a bakery by the escalators and third is a clothing store beside the bakery. 31/75 units in the mall are now leased out which is almost half. Add in rumored potential tenants that number is close to 38. Honestly, I am pretty surprised the mall is already like this given there are no anchor tenants. With the food court so filled and with the Yonge frontage units tenanted with volume dependent businesses I think EP will do well eventually even without LCBO/Metro.

The Yuki Hana sushi has finally opened after almost a year of renovations.

 

[amnesiajune]

The Yuki Hana sushi has finally opened after almost a year of renovations.

What's that?

 

[Bill123]

What's that?

A foodcourt unit in EP that does sushi, bento boxes, miso soup, udon... They were one of the first to start renovations. Originally 4/14 foodcourt units were supposed to be sushi but 3 have since dropped out leaving Yuki Hana to be the sole sushi provider.

 

[pipolchap]

What was supposed to be an ethnic mall due to T&T has now turned into a very special multicultural mall that I don't think we see anywhere else.

Hope this brings more business to you, Bill. Although I love Asian food, I'm liking the Caribbean and western mix.

Looks like this project is making a turn for the better!

 

[amnesiajune]

One thing that's always stood out to me is how bright and clean the Emerald Park shopping mall is. Aura, by contrast, is a basement and not very inviting. I don't know if many of the shops down there will actually be sustainable in the long term, but it doesn't seem like they'll struggle to bring people in especially once they have a (hopefully 24/7) Tim Hortons.

 

[constructo]

UPDATE ON THE POYNTZ AVE. TUNNEL: A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR EVERYONE

Here's a memo I received from Bazis staff this afternoon.

"I would like to inform you that all the work required to occupy the TTC tunnel connection to the Emerald Park development has been completed today by both electricians and fire-monitoring-verification companies.

I have requested that the fire-alarm verification be expedited by both parties in order to be submitted to our base-building consultants and the city building inspector Alex Weick. The verification companies are trying to issue the verification-paperwork to me for Monday/ Tuesday of next week. Or sooner…

I have a scheduled inspection with Alex Weick Monday December 5th at 10:30a onsite to walk the space.

Hoarding has tentatively been scheduled to be removed for the morning of Wednesday December 7th 2016."

Perhaps I should arrange a ribbon cutting with cake and coffee.

 

[sunnyraytoronto]

Thanks Constructo, I was forwarded the same email (originally from Bazis representative) earlier this afternoon from the Councillor's office. The December 7th opening falls pretty close to the 2 weeks ETA City Staff suggested when I posted on November 22nd,...

Fire safety is a huge liability issue, so City won't issue occupancy permit until all fire safety issues are resolved. Right now, time for developer's compliance, city inspection and various city sign-offs - the late November opening as posted throughout TTC station and EmeraldPark is NOT happening,... some city staff ETA of 2 weeks for early December opening possible but optimistic,.... Councillor Filion's office ETA is about 3 weeks, so a mid-December opening is more likely,....

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/thread...-rosario-varacalli.4829/page-139#post-1167089
It's the most optimistic case and assumes they'll easily pass their city fire inspection and occupancy permit,... Bazis never make things easy!

Today and yesterday, they were doing their annual fire alarm testing at EmeraldPark,... so they had 2 full days to test the fire alarm and warning system throughout their TTC entrance & pedestrian tunnel as well.

Constructo,.... when a developer completes a project on time - it's time for a ribbon cutting celebration. When a developer, like Bazis, after 20+ months of delays finally meet one of their own revised and often delayed deadline,.... meeting the deadline itself is so rare that,... it's time to buy a lottery ticket!

 

[Bill123]

Seen at finch station

 

[Mint]

There's no Presto reader at the EP TTC entrance, right?