Toronto Star article from September 5, 2010. More about the school, but I still found it interesting. Follow the link for the photos.
New North Toronto Collegiate opens, sharing space with condo towers
Louise Brown
http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/...legiate-opens-sharing-space-with-condo-towers
A 24-storey condo tower rises up from the school’s east wall. A taller one looms snug to the south face, where residents may want to consider what they wear on their balconies when teens are in class.
In a cozy but controversial experiment in shared land use that some say is the way of the future, North Toronto Collegiate will welcome students this week into a striking new building hugged on both sides by the condo towers that helped pay for the new digs.
But don’t call it Tridel High, warns the local trustee.
The new $52-million North Toronto that opens this week with triple gym, wireless lounge and historic courtyard lined with bricks painstakingly moved from the 1912 school, shares an unusually intimate setting with the condos.
Yet high school and highrise are separate entities, says Josh Matlow.
“We’re not naming a room after the developer, there’s no corporate branding,†insists Matlow about one of the most contentious projects undertaken by the Toronto District School Board. Matlow took office in 2003 when board staff first suggested selling off a slice of the old field and parking lot to raise money for a new school.
Too rundown to last but too costly to fix, North Toronto’s location near thriving Yonge and Eglinton meant it could sell off less than an acre for $23 million in 2007, enough to kick-start a rebuild project, and with it a storm of debate on whether school boards should sell public land to private owners.
Could condos and classrooms make good neighbours?
“Let’s see what happens when the marching band starts practising at 7:45 a.m. Friday morning,†says veteran gym teacher Lorne Smith, who admits he is so excited about the new five-storey building after 31 years in the old one, he delayed retiring for a year so he can teach in a gym with 16 basketball hoops.
“The gym’s so huge there’s an echo. We call it The Kingdom. For once, our kids will have the facilities they deserve.â€
Former trustee Shelley Laskin recalls when students first pleaded for a new school back in 2002, citing the smallest high school library in the city, one music room for a flagship program that draws 500 students and a playing field too small for a home game.
Now, with three music rooms and five practice rooms, a 600-seat theatre that can be rented out and an airy library with armchairs with laptop desks attached, “we finally have an environment that values kids,†Laskin said.
It’s not the first time Canada’s largest school board has traded field for funding. It paid for a new Claude Watson School for the Arts in 2003 by selling part of the school grounds near Yonge and Sheppard to a developer who built a condo nearby. But plans to sell school land for highrise condos in north Toronto drew fire from a neighbourhood still fuming about the 54-storey Minto tower at Yonge and Eglinton.
“We got over that hurdle by working with the community and understanding what was important to them, which was more green space, so we designed a new field that will bring green space from Broadway Ave. right through to Roehampton Ave.,†said Sheila Penny, the board’s head of strategic building and renewal.
To avoid grassroots backlash, the board asked ratepayer groups to help set a limit of height and density for the condos – they agreed to two towers at 24 and 27 storeys and no more than 5,000 square feet of density – which became a binding memorandum of understanding for the developer.
Giving the neighbours a voice in design is an approach the board is likely to follow in 2011 as it begins public consultations on the possibility of redevelopment at Davisville Public School a few blocks south.
Still, some disagree. Former student Andy Georgiades is against selling any school grounds “because all public open space should be sacred for Canadians to enjoy. And selling property is not a sustainable way to fund new schools because eventually you run out of land.â€
Georgiades, who graduated in 1992, doesn’t deny “the place was a dump even when I was there. Pieces would fall off the wall.†Yet he can’t believe it was cheaper to rebuild than to renovate, although Penny noted the steel columns supporting the brickwork had started to fail.
“The old school was in disgusting shape; holes in the stairwells, the lockers were broken, the doors in the bathroom cubicles never closed and the old library was so small there were never enough computers,†recalls Grade 12 student Shannon Grant. “But the new school is amazing – it looks newer than a private school. The bathrooms have huge mirrors and dual flush toilets. It’s insane that I get to go here.â€
The board also faced outrage from graduates opposed to the old school being demolished, a process that began last week. Solution? An inner courtyard lined with bricks and date stones from the old building, an alumni meeting room and climate-control room for archives.
In the most striking nod to the past, the entrance to the courtyard is actually the front door of the old school, moved and reassembled brick by brick inside the sunlit new building.
“We reclaimed thousands of bricks for this $300,000 heritage courtyard, largely paid for by our amazing alumni,†said principal Joel Gorenkoff. “When you stand here you feel North Toronto is still North Toronto.â€
Financial analyst Wing Pak moved into the south building in July, overlooking what will be the new field with artificial turf next spring.
“It’s hard to find green spaces in the city and on the 16th floor, I look down on the field and also the green roof of the sool below,†said Pak, 39. “I actually think the activity of the students will make it a more interesting place to live.â€
