Toronto The Residences of 488 University Avenue | 206.95m | 55s | Amexon | Core Architects

[AHK]

The construction company for the building, Toddglen, may be part of the explanation - at least based on some of their prior projects.

From what I recall, Toddglen built the first four of the Concord Cityplace buildings, the Apex and Matrix buildings, on the south side of Front Street, just east of Spadina - which took a very long time. The next building sold by Concord Adex after Apex and Matrix was the Optima, 81 Navy Wharf Court, built by PCL. Even though starting later, Optima was built, finished and occupied before Toddglen was finished with the Apex and Matrix buildings. Toddglen never got another look in at Concord Cityplace - all their subsequent buildings have been constructed by either PCL or Ellis Don

BSN (Bloor Street Neighbourhood) on Charles Street was another Toddglen building, this time for Cresford. Many comments in the BSN Urbantoronto Projects thread.

I have heard of Toddglen being 'on schedule' on a project - but I'm not close enough to the construction industry to know whether that would be normal for them, or would be an exception.

Others with more direct knowledge of the industry - please feel free to comment.

 

[ilikemilk]

The construction company for the building, Toddglen, may be part of the explanation - at least based on some of their prior projects.

From what I recall, Toddglen built the first four of the Concord Cityplace buildings, the Apex and Matrix buildings, on the south side of Front Street, just east of Spadina - which took a very long time. The next building sold by Concord Adex after Apex and Matrix was the Optima, 81 Navy Wharf Court, built by PCL. Even though starting later, Optima was built, finished and occupied before Toddglen was finished with the Apex and Matrix buildings. Toddglen never got another look in at Concord Cityplace - all their subsequent buildings have been constructed by either PCL or Ellis Don

BSN (Bloor Street Neighbourhood) on Charles Street was another Toddglen building, this time for Cresford. Many comments in the BSN Urbantoronto Projects thread.

I have heard of Toddglen being 'on schedule' on a project - but I'm not close enough to the construction industry to know whether that would be normal for them, or would be an exception.

Others with more direct knowledge of the industry - please feel free to comment.

There are so many other factors at play then just the construction company. In this or any other building. What it comes down to for this one is simply that they are doing a lot of things that just haven't been done in Toronto before. Figuring those things out takes time and in many instances requires that things get reviewed on site as you go. In a typical construction process there are a number of pieces that you can design ahead of time so that you can have them on site when it's time to install them. In a project like this a lot of the stuff that has lead times, whether it's manufacturing structural elements or scheduling a crew to do certain work you can't plan ahead too far because things are always liable to change once you get to that point. It's like doing renovations on an old house. Everyone knows that there is going to be something unexpected that comes up that ends up setting you back, but a house is such a small scale project that most set backs are a few hours to a few weeks. In a project of this size that same delay could be a few weeks to a few months. Additionally because these guys are keeping the building occupied they have to deal with all kinds of temporary solutions. I'm sure there are a bunch of things that they end up doing 2-3 times because of that - for example when they re-skinned the building. They had to put up temp walls, take the existing facade down, extend the floor, new exterior goes up, remove temp walls, finish out the new space and then I'm sure go back at do some repairs once the steel structure is loaded up. If the building isn't occupied you can probably get the same result with 1/2 the steps.

 

[Benito]

Today.

 

[ssiguy2]

I wouldn't say it's the ugliest building I have ever seen but.................scratch that, it is the ugliest building I've ever seen.

 

[Ramako]

I wouldn't say it's the ugliest building I have ever seen but.................scratch that, it is the ugliest building I've ever seen.

Considering some of the truly awful crap out there, how someone could find a plain glass box ugly blows my mind. Boring? Plain? Sure. Ugly? Ugliest ever? That just doesn't compute to me.

 

[old boy]

Considering some of the truly awful crap out there, how someone could find a plain glass box ugly blows my mind. Boring? Plain? Sure. Ugly? Ugliest ever? That just doesn't compute to me.

It's just ssiguy2's frustration spilling out a bit. Unquestionably, this city does boxes well and to new heights even.

 

[Lenser]

Can't say I find it at all ugly. I pass directly by it pretty much weekly and that glass looks pretty sleek. I look forward to seeing more floors stacked onto it. It's going to be quite a change for University Avenue when you're standing at King or Queen and looking northward.

 

[Bennyb]

I think it’s nice !

 

[raptor]

I think it's in the top 10% of projects in Toronto. Especially considering the engineering here

 

[koogle]

the special engineering needed to build this tower, that's cool for sure..... but does that imply that the condo fees will be high? considering the cost of maintaining such a unique engineering piece in this city?

 

[DSC]

the special engineering needed to build this tower, that's cool for sure..... but does that imply that the condo fees will be high? considering the cost of maintaining such a unique engineering piece in this city?

Why do you think the maintenance costs will be higher than those on a conventional building built all at the same time?

 

[steveve]

This thing nowhere near completion, we haven’t even seen what the residential portion is going to look like, way too early to call this one (though I like what I’ve seen thus far).
Anyway, the last update by Benito shows some details at the top that I hope are ironed out in the next few months. And I do hope we don’t get something jarring with the residential cladding. I’m not sure if the curtain wall system will continue or switch to a hybrid option, ala Hullmark Centre - a tale of two buildings.

 

[Bogtrotter]

As far as the average highrise development goes this is among the more appealing ones to me. Quite like the visible crossing bracing and the glazing looks pretty good. True enough that the upper floors with balconies could detract, and may appear too much like one building stacked on top of another.

 

[Ryan_T]

Indeed, this is quite nice. Simple, and blends well with the other glass towers. Knowing how it's created, and being able to see the steel supports make it one of the more interesting ones in the city.

 

[interchange42]

Yesterday, see-through table-top from a distance, and then after getting closer, wandering into the current mess of an atrium:

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