Toronto 333 College Street | 39.01m | 11s | Urbacon | RAW Design

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I guess thats the end of that small strip mall @ College + Augusta

333 COLLEGE ST
Ward 20 - Tor & E.York District

Proposal to replace the existing automotive rental facility and non-residential building with a 13 and 6-storey mixed use redevelopment. The College Street building will rise to 7-storeys and will provide setbacks at the upper levels as it transitions to I3-storeys, with a height of approximately 42 metres. The Augusta Avenue building will have a 4-storey base, will have setbacks at the 5th and 6th levels, and will have a height of approximately 21 metres. The two buildings will be connected by a bridge at the 5th level and residents will share the indoor amenity spaces.
Proposed Use --- # of Storeys --- # of Units ---
Applications:
Type Number Date Submitted Status
OPA & Rezoning 14 253221 STE 20 OZ Nov 18, 2014 Under Review
 
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Are we sure it includes the strip mall?

So I don't really see how this development site at 333 College will connect to Augusta with 335 College in the way.

Gee youre right, also i cant see any of those buildings at the top of Augusta getting demolished, unless you go down as far as the coin laundry/bike on wheels bldgs:confused:
 
I wonder why that gives no address for Augusta Avenue, as that parcel would be a separate purchase from 333. 333 College is deep, but it doesn't go deeper than 335 College, so to bridge over to an Augusta building, it must include the next property to the south, which seems (according to the City of Toronto's map server) to be a rear portion connected with 303 Augusta and possibly 309-311 Augusta. (305 and 307 Augusta seem to be separate ownership, if the map server is up-to-date in regard to all of these properties.)

42
 
Plans and Drawings

Plans and drawings are posted here on the City's site: http://app.toronto.ca/DevelopmentAp...icationsList.do?action=init&folderRsn=3660448

Not sure how I feel about this. It's certainly a unique looking building. Especially the Augusta frontage. Seems like it's cramming to much on an awkward site.

333College.JPG
 

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Looks like a RAW design
 
Interesting. Looks like possible laneway housing there.

It looks like this has been in the works for a while: http://lobby.zeepri.me/r/SM17266

They were perhaps waiting for the College condos to go through and face the neighbourhood heat first? Or perhaps I am reading too closely into it.
 
Plans and drawings are posted here on the City's site: http://app.toronto.ca/DevelopmentAp...icationsList.do?action=init&folderRsn=3660448

Not sure how I feel about this. It's certainly a unique looking building. Especially the Augusta frontage. Seems like it's cramming to much on an awkward site.

View attachment 39577

The Augusta frontage? It doesn't seem to be visible if I understand the rendering correctly. Seems like rendering is looking NW from the SE, with the tall building is the one facing college, the smallest building in the middle is facing a lane way (Ellen Ave), and the building on the left is the one facing Augusta. So you only see the S and E side of the Augusta building.
 
There's a public consultation about this building taking place at 103 Bellevue Avenue at 7 PM the evening. If anyone is able to go and report on it, we would love to know all about it!

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I was in attendance tonight so I'll give a brief summary of the discussion.

The principal players were Councillor Joe Cressy, Marian Prejel from city planning and Roland Colthoff from RAW. The applicant or developer took a back seat on this one. The tone was fairly contentious from the outset with Cressy acknowledging his reservations before handing off to the city planner. Colthoff then gave a brief explanation of design intent focusing on: the creation of a new lane-way or mews off College street, the separation of the Augusta and College St masses and their respective heights and stepbacks. Of note, the building is to be a rental with the developer continuing as owner/operator. And although their market is students, a majority (80%) of units are 2 or 3 bedrooms. This also explains the provision for common/study spaces on each floor (these are the coloured projections on the elevations).

Now the community response was overwhelmingly negative with regards to scope, scale and form. The major points of contention were:
- Massing: rising too high, too quickly with inadequate stepbacks
- Shadow Studies: relating to massing, the building's adverse effect on sunlight to adjacent TCHC housing and urban gardening efforts
- Augusta St elevation: in addition to objections to height (4 stepping to 6 stories) the stripped down, blocky modern facade was roundly criticized
- Unit size: 2 bedroom units at 500-700 SQ FT were met with stiff opposition

A few observations:

The fairly contentious and negative tone was to be expected with this being Kensington. There were good intentions (rental units, stepbacks, etc) that were completely undone by lackluster visuals. If you're proposing a large development in Kensington, you better blow people away because they're going into the process with a healthy (or unhealthy) dose of skepticism. This project certainly seemed to start off on the wrong foot but I think there is a salvageable project underneath. The big question is would even a stunning architectural presentation win over that crowd and I'm not optimistic of either happening.
 
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