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One Rainsford is a new six-storey condominium on Queen Street one block west of Woodbine Avenue in Toronto's sough-after Beach area. Being built by luxury home builder/developer Riedel Group in association with builder/developer Mitchell & Associates, One Rainsford is a model of the mid-rise development called for in the City of Toronto's Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study which aims to revitalize our main streets and increase density on arterial roads which are well served by transit. While there has been some local resident opposition to intensification in the area, the City's Avenues plan responds to the Ontario Government's Places to Grow directive to create develop more sustainably and save farmland from becoming tract subdivisions.
Construction on the 6-storey building started in late 2011 and work is now approaching completion. Renderings depict architect Richard Ziegler’s contemporary design utilizing the entire Queen St. frontage, clad in dark charcoal clay brick and glass, for retail space. The main residential floors will be clad in a natural stone on an aluminum honeycomb substrate, giving way to the fully glazed penthouse floors and private rooftop terraces up top.
In the photos visible below (taken November 2012), we can see that One Rainsford is being built with structural steel, as opposed to the reinforced concrete construction common with most residential buildings. Steel construction was chosen over the reinforced concrete method used in most multi-unit residental construction for a number of reasons, which include price, flexibility and most importantly, ease of construction.
Once complete, One Rainsford will add 28 single and double-storey condo units to the neighbourhood. Following on the success of One Rainsford, Two Hundred—The Beach by the same developers and architect, will bring an additional 28 unit mid-rise to the adjacent property to the east. It is now 50% sold.
For additional information and renderings, visit UrbanToronto's related dataBase link below. To get involved in the discussion, you may visit our related thread, here.
