Toronto The Selby | 165.5m | 50s | Tricon | bKL Architecture

khris

khris

Senior Member
Member Bio
Joined
Aug 28, 2007
Messages
8,730
Reaction score
782
Location
Toronto, ON
Another Cityzen building coming to Toronto. This time brought to us by BKL Architecture.

In terms of acquisitions, we've recently purchased the Clarion Hotel property just south of Bloor at the corner of Sherbourne and Selby. We're engaging with Chicago firm BKL Architecture and their principal, Thomas Kerwin, to come up with alluring design concepts that will likely depart from the usual architecture of the city.


http://blog.mycondomylife.com/cityzen-developments/2012/04/sam-talks-april-2012-edition.html
 
Perhaps they plan on doing what Tridel did, and move that house to Sherbourne and build behind it. The hotel addition behind the mansion (former home to Boots!) is a fairly nondescript block structure. The intersection of Sherbourne and Shelby doesn't have an urban feel and would benefit from bringing buildings to the street: deliberately abandoned homes on the NE, weary looking businesses on the SE, and parking lots on the NW and SW.
 
Yeah, shifting the house onto Sherbourne and building behind it would definitely work. I like the Clarion Hotel Victorian but always hated how there was an awkward parking lot in front of it. With all these developments in the pipeline along Sherbourne, this rugged area is quickly getting re-integrated with the downtown mainstream.

It's interesting that Cityzen is bringing in BKL from Chicago for this project. I checked out their portfolio, and their lone residential project looks very similar to our aA. Their projects for China look very nice so this should be promising.
 
I'm not willing to call all of Sherbourne down and out.

The area south of Queen (maybe a little bit farther south) is great, generally full of converted warehouses to office space a lot of condos built in the last 10/15 years.

But further north up to Bloor I agree it's a different story.
 
Given what's been built recently along that stretch and what's been proposed, I wonder what kind of density they're going for. I'm also curious to see if they retain the hotel use (perhaps under a different brand). The property in question also lines up directly with Howard St., so they've got the potential to create an interesting view terminus here.

And I think the idea of retaining the heritage house intact and relocating it is a given, but instead of moving it out to Sherbourne I'd actually rather see it reoriented to face Selby (perhaps at the west end of the property, to continue the row of heritage housing).
 
It will be an interesting streetscape if they do a number of these mansion/condo combos up and down Sherbourne. I like what they've done at James Cooper but I'd rather see them make more use of the mansion and open up the front doors at Sherbourne so that it's more a part of the lobby rather than being a kind of museum.
 
That is a rather large building to pick up and move, even if it's only 50 feet to Sherbourne. Tearing down the addition would probably give you enough room to put up something skinny (albeit not too tall) and convert the parking lot into green space. Not really sure which option would have the biggest economic advantage though.
 
whatever said:
Given what's been built recently along that stretch and what's been proposed, I wonder what kind of density they're going for. I'm also curious to see if they retain the hotel use (perhaps under a different brand). The property in question also lines up directly with Howard St., so they've got the potential to create an interesting view terminus here.

And I think the idea of retaining the heritage house intact and relocating it is a given, but instead of moving it out to Sherbourne I'd actually rather see it reoriented to face Selby (perhaps at the west end of the property, to continue the row of heritage housing).
Click to expand...


really interesting idea....i like it.
 
Xray_Crystal_Junkie said:
That is a rather large building to pick up and move, even if it's only 50 feet to Sherbourne. Tearing down the addition would probably give you enough room to put up something skinny (albeit not too tall) and convert the parking lot into green space. Not really sure which option would have the biggest economic advantage though.
Click to expand...

Indeed, this is a much larger building than James Cooper Mansion even if they demolish the western addition (former Boots downstairs).
 
Does anyone recall whether Ernest Hemingway lived in the original house or in the addition? That might be a useful bit of information to have when speculating about demolishing the latter.
 
Renderings. Looks like they are moving the Clarion just like James Cooper Mansion.

CityzenHotel1.jpg


CityzenHotel2.jpg


CityzenHotel3.jpg


CityzenHotel4.jpg
 
Very nice design, the scale is a bit problematic but the neighbourhood context is in flux anyways so that's probably OK. The space under the "overhang" needs to be thought about imaginatively...

AoD
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top