Toronto 543 Richmond Street West | 47.24m | 15s | Pemberton | BDP Quadrangle

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https://twitter.com/gtadashhomes/status/1054729813251051520
 
The west side of the building is especially heavy looking with all that beige brick cladding, but that's right next to the 80's office building next door, so it will be obscured from that. But overall it is a decent looking background building and it's very nice to have a public plaza on Portland Street as many people walk along that street to get to and from King and Queen Streets, though at the expense of the courtyard which is pretty deep and canyon-like (the bottom of it is the 2nd floor outdoor amenity with swimming pool), but I won't be living there so I'm not complaining.

The massing and punched openings is vaguely similar to Musee nearby, both designed by Quadrangle, but this is much better as it doesn't have the mess of odd details added on just to try to make it look interesting but fails to do so.
 
I'm glad we're avoiding the typical glass and spandrel formula but I can't help but wonder why they picked a really cold colour combination. IMO, the beige and black cues clash with most of the King west heritage. Given the heavy massing of this building, red brick at least could have given a London Terasse (NYC) effect. Instead, it's just a meh background building.
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How much more would it be to break up the block into two or three side by side buildings with separate entrances and cores? I would pay more to live in a boutique building with 50 to 100 units than a sprawling 200 to 300 unit vertical suburb.
 
The west-side units facing the white office building seem reasonably priced between 1040-1070 per sqf. Could be a good investment opportunity considering King Toronto and The Well may change King West forever.
 
While the parking lot here was not fenced off this morning, there was only a single car parked in it when I went by (it is typically more or less full). Could construction be starting?
 
Basically similar to the photos by Red Mars - an almost empty parking lot. Of note - all signage for the company which had been operating the parking lot has been removed - the empty boards, now just bare wood, can be seen. The parking attendant booth is also unattended.

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