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Here's the Star's report:
Past, progress sometimes mix
Two huge downtown projects incorporate heritage buildings
Elsewhere pieces of Toronto's history fall to the wrecker's ball
May 10, 2006. 01:00 AM
DONOVAN VINCENT
CITY HALL BUREAU
Two massive downtown Toronto high-rise projects — a 65-storey condo/hotel on University Ave. and the 50-storey office tower at Bay and Adelaide cleared major hurdles yesterday, signs a building boom in the city's core is in high gear.
Toronto and East York community council gave the go-ahead to Brookfield's $250 million office tower, planned for the northeast corner of Bay and Adelaide. The highrise, if approved by city council later this month, could start being built as early as this fall, with occupancy in early 2009.
The transparent glass skyscraper is part of a larger $500 million proposal, which includes plans for a hotel and condo.
The 65-storey building, estimated worth close to $400 million, is slated for University and Adelaide and has earned the nickname the "Shangri La tower'' because Westbank Developments wants to get the large Asia-based Shangri La Hotels to operate the first 10 floors of the building. No agreement has been reached yet with Shangri La for the planned five-star hotel.
Westbank hopes to begin construction next summer, finishing in 2010. "These are two of the most significant underdeveloped blocks in the city. It's exciting to see developments of this calibre going foreword,'' city councillor Janet Davis, chair of the Toronto and East York community council, said in an interview.
The Bay-Adelaide project is being lauded for being TTC accessible and because it won't cast a major shadow over Nathan Phillips Square.
Davis is also pleased that both the Bay-Adelaide and hotel/condo projects are incorporating existing heritage buildings into their designs. The 80-year-old, 12-storey National Building, one of the early Bay Street office buildings, will be dismantled and rebuilt as part of the Bay-Adelaide tower.
The abandoned Bishop's Block, originally built in the late 1820s as apartments, and last operating as a bar before being closed decades ago, will be gutted but its facades will be maintained as a stand-alone building that's part of the University Ave. project. Other old structures in the city haven't been as fortunate, including the recent demolition of the 1963 Inn on the Park Hotel. And the office of a Scarborough firm that made millions of throwaway paper cups is itself disposable in the 21st century, Scarborough community council decided yesterday.
Councillors ignored the last-ditch plea of Rick Schofield, chair of the Scarborough community preservation panel, to intervene to preserve the façade of the old Lily Cup building on Danforth Rd. A concrete 2 1/2-storey Lily cup forms the building's front entrance. The site is slated to become a seniors' apartment and townhouses.
With files from Paul Moloney and John Spears
Past, progress sometimes mix
Two huge downtown projects incorporate heritage buildings
Elsewhere pieces of Toronto's history fall to the wrecker's ball
May 10, 2006. 01:00 AM
DONOVAN VINCENT
CITY HALL BUREAU
Two massive downtown Toronto high-rise projects — a 65-storey condo/hotel on University Ave. and the 50-storey office tower at Bay and Adelaide cleared major hurdles yesterday, signs a building boom in the city's core is in high gear.
Toronto and East York community council gave the go-ahead to Brookfield's $250 million office tower, planned for the northeast corner of Bay and Adelaide. The highrise, if approved by city council later this month, could start being built as early as this fall, with occupancy in early 2009.
The transparent glass skyscraper is part of a larger $500 million proposal, which includes plans for a hotel and condo.
The 65-storey building, estimated worth close to $400 million, is slated for University and Adelaide and has earned the nickname the "Shangri La tower'' because Westbank Developments wants to get the large Asia-based Shangri La Hotels to operate the first 10 floors of the building. No agreement has been reached yet with Shangri La for the planned five-star hotel.
Westbank hopes to begin construction next summer, finishing in 2010. "These are two of the most significant underdeveloped blocks in the city. It's exciting to see developments of this calibre going foreword,'' city councillor Janet Davis, chair of the Toronto and East York community council, said in an interview.
The Bay-Adelaide project is being lauded for being TTC accessible and because it won't cast a major shadow over Nathan Phillips Square.
Davis is also pleased that both the Bay-Adelaide and hotel/condo projects are incorporating existing heritage buildings into their designs. The 80-year-old, 12-storey National Building, one of the early Bay Street office buildings, will be dismantled and rebuilt as part of the Bay-Adelaide tower.
The abandoned Bishop's Block, originally built in the late 1820s as apartments, and last operating as a bar before being closed decades ago, will be gutted but its facades will be maintained as a stand-alone building that's part of the University Ave. project. Other old structures in the city haven't been as fortunate, including the recent demolition of the 1963 Inn on the Park Hotel. And the office of a Scarborough firm that made millions of throwaway paper cups is itself disposable in the 21st century, Scarborough community council decided yesterday.
Councillors ignored the last-ditch plea of Rick Schofield, chair of the Scarborough community preservation panel, to intervene to preserve the façade of the old Lily Cup building on Danforth Rd. A concrete 2 1/2-storey Lily cup forms the building's front entrance. The site is slated to become a seniors' apartment and townhouses.
With files from Paul Moloney and John Spears
