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Mystery Building

stokel

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There is a modern building on the northwest corner of Progress Av and Corporate Dr in Scarborough. It has no sign indicating what the building is and no numbers above the entry doors.

Some people say its a spy agency, others say its Canada Revenue Agency. Any guesses?
 
Toyota's on the northeast corner.

Is this the building you're talking about?

1011844266_b2201fc341_o.jpg
 
That's what they want you to think. TD Bank is obviously being used as a cutout to establish plausible deniability. I managed a telephoto shot of two employees outside this building:

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It's 740 Progress Avenue. It's owned by the Toronto Dominion Bank. My guess would be that it's a data centre.

You're right, it is a TD data centre but the posts about it being some sort of secret organization building ring true. While working in the area, I swear I never saw anyone going in or out of the structure.
 
I found this post a little late, but I will share what I know. I have lived in a Condo overlooking this building since 2001. I have often wondered what they do. You may recall the major power outage that lasted for days in Toronto a number of years back. During that outage, it was dark as far as the eyes can see except this building was lite up like a Christmas tree throughout the outage. It's obviously a very important building because there was enough fuel from the generator to light the building throughout the outage for days.

Some speculated that it's a Data Centre. I am in the HVAC business and have seen many Data Centre. This is not a Data Centre because they don't have enough cooling towers on the roof. Just regular cooling towers for an office. Some has pointed out that they have a special environmental permit for exhausting air. I do see 4 big burner exhaust units on the roof. I have never seen smoke from the exhaust units. I am guessing the exhaust units are for burners to destroy documents, perhaps in case of an emergency.

The parking lots are always full during the day, so they are obviously busy. It's still a mystery as to what they do. However, the need to destroy documents looks like something out of the movies.
 
I just Google Mapped the place and the building is labeled Health Canada.
The labeling on Google Maps is not to be relied upon - it is certainly often right but certainly not 100% of the time.

There is also (perhaps) ANOTHER UT THREAD on it : https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/td-computer-centre-scarborough-bellamy-progress-complete.8610/

Where it says:
TD Computer Centre - Scarborough (Bellamy/Progress) COMPLETE

It had a 2019 building permit for:

Application:
Fire/Security Upgrade
Status:
Under Review
Location:
740 PROGRESS AVE
TORONTO ON M1H 2X3
Ward 24: Scarborough-Guildwood
Application#:
19 203296 FSU 00 FS
Accepted Date:
Aug 12, 2019
Project:
Office
Work:
Electromagnetic Locks
Description:
Proposal to install 1 electromagnetic lock on basement.
 
I just Google Mapped the place and the building is labeled Health Canada.
Health Canada makes better sense. I mistaken those burner exhausts for burning of documents. If this is a Health Canada building, then those are 4 big incinerator exhausts on the roof.
 
Health Canada makes better sense. I mistaken those burner exhausts for burning of documents. If this is a Health Canada building, then those are 4 big incinerator exhausts on the roof.

Jeez, don't tell the Americans. It will fuel their conspiracy theories that our 'socialist' health care system has 'death committees' that decide our fates.
 
If it is TD, I suspect it's a "hot" backup and disaster recovery site for the bank in Toronto. Inside would be rows and rows of a few hundred computer terminals setup to be quickly configured and linked to whichever internal corporate TD network is necessary; banking, insurance, asset management, capital markets, corpoate accounting, etc....

Government regulations--and basic business sense--now requires large banks have these backup work locations for emergencies. They are there for all kinds of situations from power outages, to building fires, to civil disturbances (like the G8 summit/riots), and they locate them near, but not too close, their corporate HQ. The purpose is to have a location for staff who are necessary to maintain minimum required business operations to work at for a period generally from several hours up to several days while their regular work site is not available or accessible. It sees regular use because every different business unit of the bank is likely required to do a live test at least once, and perhaps twice each year where all staff go to that office to work, and then report what challenges or bugs they encountered in the system. If there is something incinerated, it's probably for disposal of documents printed out for wrk use that have client information on them.

RBC has a similar setup at their office complex in Meadowvale where two floors are dedicated to hundreds of desks and computer work stations available to all staff from downtown with only a few hours notice to the local IT team. IIRC they had to use it heavily a few years ago when that hydro vault fire happened down on King Street at Yonge and they were forced to abandon the entire office building there.

They are usually not labelled on the outside for both security purposes and so there is no public confusion that it is an office with a customer service staff open to clients.
 
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