Interesting article in the post re Project Symphony and a Great West Life tower.
Secret tower speeds along
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The City of Toronto already cuts the grass in parks, runs the subways and picks up the garbage; now the city plans to become a developer of office towers downtown.
At least, that is the word from Jeff Steiner, head of the Toronto Economic Development Corp., a city agency with a plan to build a 500,000-square-foot office tower for $140-million on Queens Quay Boulevard, just across the Jarvis slip from the Redpath sugar refinery. The building, on city owned land, would be pretty big: slightly less than half the size of Scotia Plaza.
Two things are unusual about this project. First, Mr. Steiner says he has an "offer to lease, which is a binding agreement" with a "multi-billion-dollar company" who will move 1,100 jobs into the ten-storey building -- but won't reveal the tenant's name. Second, the city is the developer.
The financing is driven by the lease," Mr. Steiner explains. "But you need a construction loan, so we will borrow some money from the city to build the project. We have some money, but when there is a very, very large project, you have to borrow." He says the amount he will borrow from Toronto is the subject of a report "that is not yet in the city cycle."
Stuart Green, a spokesman for Mayor David Miller, says the Mayor has no comment on Mr. Steiner's plan to borrow city money for an office tower.
We may get more details on the project today, when TEDCO's team presents the project to a design review panel of architects selected by the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp., at TWRC's new offices at 20 Bay St.
We think of TEDCO mainly as the owner of huge swaths of oil-soaked industrial land in the Port of Toronto, but Mr. Steiner says TEDCO is more.
"TEDCO is a developer," he says. "TEDCO developed the Canpar building." Canpar had been a long-time tenant of TEDCO in a former warehouse on the Queens Quay; to make way for waterfront regeneration, TEDCO built Canpar a new warehouse on city land in Etobicoke. TEDCO recently sold that building to a pension fund for "in excess of $20-million, which is more than we paid, so we made a profit," Mr. Steiner says.
Al Razowski, a senior planner for downtown Toronto, notes that TEDCO is "normally involved in industrial development," but not so much in office buildings; he also notes that lately, private companies are enthused about building commercial towers.
"All of a sudden we're seeing great interest in office towers downtown," Mr. Razowski says. Among them, council recently approved a 26-storey office tower for Great West Life at 18 York St., corner of Bremner Blvd, next to the Rogers Centre.
All of which begs the question, as councillor Doug Holyday of Etobicoke asked yesterday, why doesn't a private developer put up Project Symphony?
"We've borrowed ourselves right into a hole in the ground," Mr. Holyday says. "For us to get into some scheme where we're going to build a building we're hoping we can rent out and make some money ... if this is viable, TEDCO should be able to find a private partner."
Others disagree; downtown councillor Adam Vaughan says, "If the city can attract a tenant and retain the underlying asset, it sounds like a good deal. I wish they could use the same creativity in housing."
Mr. Steiner says TEDCO has to act fast to jump-start the waterfront renaissance. "Timing is the most important thing," he says.
Certainly, Mr. Steiner seems to be in a tremendous hurry: in February he kicked out Cinespace Studios, TEDCO's longtime tenant on the site, and hired architect Jack Diamond, without tender, to design the building. A source close to the architect says, "things are moving very quickly. It's very difficult to design the building and get drawings for approvals at the same time."
Mr. Razowski says that, last he heard, the plan was to speed the project through city hall via site plan approval, which means, "no community meeting, generally no community involvement."
Mr. Steiner says he is already in talks with the city; he wants to have shovels in the ground in July. Hang onto your sailor's caps and your hard hats. We're heading into uncharted waters.