Toronto Emerald Park Condos | 128.92m | 40s | Bazis | Rosario Varacalli

What caused the 6pm indoor splash-pool at EmeraldPark food-court? I don't think it has anything to do with the rain-shower which finished around 3:30pm

The first floor blueprint shows what seems to be some type of HVAC units (weird rectangular symbol) in the food-court ceiling (1/2 of food court shown near rolled-up part of blue print),... maybe dehumidifiers? And maybe that's why Bill123 felt it was humid inside,.... anyways, a few months ago when the plumbers were onsite adding the piping and drainage system/pump to some of the retail units, they were also adding something (steel boxes with wiring as I recall,... also see second image) to the ceiling at the food court pretty close to where it flooded,... these same HVAC-dehumidifiers seems to also be in the ceiling over the Persian alteration place,.... he should bring an umbrella to work just in case! Interestingly, no such HVAC-dehumidifiers anywhere near the Yonge frontage stores,... but they have huges water pipes!
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Here's a photo taken Saturday afternoon during the airing out,... did flooding come from these copper pipes? They burst when frozen in the middle of Winter,.. but it's August! Notice, along the copper pipe, there are now red levers to open and close the water flow,... the clean white water-tight tape seems on those water valve seems to indicate it was recently installed,... probably as part of this repair. Anyways, Toasty is probably more soggy than toasty.
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sunnyraytoronto said:
Anyways,... its early August, and hot and humid as heck,.... so let's go for a swim at EmeraldPark swimming pool,.... nope - can't do that,... it's closed for repairs - again!!! Well, at least there's the whirl-pool,... nada! Whirl-pool closed as well! Again!!!! Last time it was closed for months! Arghhh,....
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The condo sent out an email saying that it'll be fixed this weekend and open late this week.
 
Personally, I'm not as down on the residential side as sunnyray... I find the unit layouts pretty good and very aesthetically pleasing. Sure, there are some corners cut - definitely notice some squeaking in some areas, loose handles (easily fixed by tightening screws), etc. but I can't say I'm angry or disappointed. Seems hard to find any 1 bedroom units these days that don't have that awful straight-line / linear kitchen layout.

I'd say the only things I'm disappointed about on the residential side are:
  • Building management and concierge that don't really seem to care about anything
  • God awful parking lot that is among the worst I have ever seen in my life. I can't even imagine how much worse it'll get when/if LCBO and Metro ever open.
  • To add to the parking lot, the doors that lead from the lot into the elevators are extremely heavy and they seem straight up dangerous with how hard they shut
  • Kitchen backsplash looks kinda cheap
Retail has been real disappointing though. I don't know how passer-bys are even supposed to know that this place has a "mall" inside. There should really have been a Yonge st. entrance into the mall. Otherwise, it really should have just been the Yonge st. facing stores (Presotea, salon, etc.) with the rest of the first floor being Metro and the second floor being LCBO; scrap the food court and cubicle stores.

Anywho, I'm pretty disappointed if Metro bailed. Whole Foods is way too expensive to shop at for meats and I would have liked ANY regularly priced grocery store at Yonge/Sheppard (e.g. Loblaws, Metro, T&T, etc.). We don't need TWO expensive/high-end grocers like Longos and Whole Foods here... ugh.
 
There's a Loblaws five blocks north, and Longos is pretty close to Loblaws in terms of pricing. Definitely NOWHERE near Whole Foods, especially for meat.
 
amnesiajune said:
There's a Loblaws five blocks north, and Longos is pretty close to Loblaws in terms of pricing. Definitely NOWHERE near Whole Foods, especially for meat.
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I was hoping for the flagship Metro, but it seems those horses have been spooked. The Metro up the street, at Church, has some questionable staff. The morning that they reopened after Christmas, I politely informed a lady working there that the bathroom was a mess, so she could, I assume, inform the cleaning and/or maintenance staff. She practically foamed at the mouth and started ranting about how no one had time to clean it, they had all wanted to get home to their families for the holiday, etc. Yikes.

Another time, we were walking in from off Yonge and an employee was urinating against the outside wall where a lot of them go to have their smoke break. Nice. (I think this guy was a bit "challenged", and I have not seen him there since.)

I like Whole Foods for their beef, as it is the grass-fed Australian variety that you simply can't get at a Metro or Loblaws. Their cashiers are also more friendly than the Loblaws. Speaking of which, that Loblaws at Empress is often messy, understocked (they either have it that day or they don't, very inconsistent), and their pricing scheme is almost criminal (for example, only get the deal if you buy multiples, which makes you pay more -- hurts people on strict budgets).

Bring on the Longos. I'm willing to pay more for better service and consistency.

And, to circle back to the subject at hand, I feel sorry for everyone who bought or leased in Emerald Park. Good people having problems that they should not be having. If I've learned anything from this thread, it's to give a wide berth to any projects from Bazis.
 
Is this Tim Hortons thing for real? It seems like there's already two of them within a block - one at the Sheppard Centre and one at Esso.

NorthYorkEd said:
Their pricing scheme is almost criminal (for example, only get the deal if you buy multiples, which makes you pay more -- hurts people on strict budgets).
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How is that any different from charging less by volume for larger/bulk packages?
 
amnesiajune said:
Is this Tim Hortons thing for real? It seems like there's already two of them within a block - one at the Sheppard Centre and one at Esso.
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They are moving from Sheppard Centre, that one is full all the time and they definitely need more space. The Canada Post might also move here to one of the Yonge units.

Progress. You can see how big 3000 sq ft is going to be:

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All that extra square footage from demolishing the walls, probably extra 500 sq ft.
 

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Uncle Meat said:
This article provides some insight into all possible reasons for delays encountered at Emerald, and other development throughout the city.

"Why does it take so long to build in Toronto?"

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/08/13/why-does-it-take-so-long-to-build-in-toronto
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Yes, part of the delays can be blamed on city's red-tape - getting city permits and inspections. But keep in mind, city departments has gone through so many budget cuts that most departments are under-staff now.

One factor that article miss is,... it's also developer/builder incompetence at fault for construction delays,.... Bazis was way over their head with EmeraldPark; Bazis' only prior NorthAmerican project was CrytalBlu where they messed up,... and 1 BloorEast where they lost $20+ million and was forced to abandon that project and sell the land before digging even began.


Now, lets compare Bazis EmeraldPark to Tridel HullmarkCentre,... 2 dual-tower mixed-use projects right across Yonge Street from each other with similar timelines in terms of sales/marketing, city planning approvals, starting construction, promise delivery date once construction started,... but very different delivery, execution and quality of build.

Project: Tridel HullmarkCentre
Sales Start: Oct 2008
Final Report (CityPlanning Approval): Feb 2010
Construction starts: Fall 2010
Original Promise Date: Fall 2013
Delivery: SouthTower residential and office condo podium late 2013, NorthTower residential and office condo late 2014 *** late one year due to redesign of pedestrian subway tunnel entrance at base of NorthTower, water mural completed Spring 2016 but still waiting for opening of Bike Station washroom and shower-change rooms in P1 parking level(may never open due to liability-security reasons)
Buyer Wait Time: 5-6 years

Project: Bazis EmeraldPark
Sales Start: July 2008
Final Report (CityPlanning Approval): April 2010
Construction starts: early 2011
Original Promise Date: Fall 2011 (in 2008) then Fall 2013, then 2015
Delivery: March 2015 WestTower condo, EastTower was few months later, retail ready Fall 2015 but plumbing not finished until Spring 2016, Office ready Jan 2016, underground water filtration system just finished and still waiting for completion of TTC subway entrance and LansingUnitedChurch community centre (Section 37 of this project).
Buyer Wait Time: 7 years


As you can see, Tridel HullmarkCentre and Bazis EmeraldPark started selling around the same time, got Final City Planning approvals around the same time, started construction about the same time but yet, there's significant difference in completion, delivery time and quality of build. Why? Tridel HullmarkCentre is the bigger project in footprint, height, complexity (building around and above TTC subway turning tunnel), number of residential and office units; yet, it was completed much faster with much higher build quality.

Big reason for Tridel HullmarkCentre efficiency is that they use their own trusted in-house construction team; whereas Bazis EmeraldPark used TMG as builder (industry reputation for being fast with innovative construction methodology) also the same builder who tried to screw over LansingUnitedChurch. Tridel construction team looked like season professionals whereas Bazis EmeraldPark construction workers look like manual labourers.

During construction, Bazis EmeraldPark had to return to North York Committee of Adjustment at least twice (first because they can't do simple math and found out they had 5 spare feet in WestTower so they cut each ceiling height by 8" to add 2 more floors and later to add infrastructure-features for Metro supermarket (which seems to have bailed)) - it's like Bazis EmeraldPark was re-designing on the fly during construction! Bazis EmeraldPark basically cut every corner (and ceiling height!) they could. As a result, the builder contractor constantly has to return to fix an endless list of issues. Right now, EmeraldPark is still finishing off the new TTC subway connection,.... putting in flooring isn't rocket science so it's shocking when it's not evenly level and the inside flooring is lower than the pedestrian sidewalk outside,... what happens when it rains? This was taken a couple of hours after the rain storm and as you can see from the water stain, it was once a much bigger puddle of water. I'm betting, they will have to redo this flooring - which will further delay the opening of this TTC subway entrance.
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Using the guy in the orange hardhat standing behind the SkyJack scissor lift as a height reference,.... the ceiling height is at least 25 feet! This will probably be the highest ceiling height of any TimHortons store. It would be a waste if they don't add a second level seating area,....
 
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