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Toronto is city that knows all too well the price of demolishing history, but developers in the past few years have started to make a huge effort regarding historic preservation, whether it be the extensive restoration work at Five St. Joseph or some work already done on the presentation centre for the Massey Tower. Today we look at a major project in Oakville where they are not just preserving some history, but gently rolling it to a new foundation.
Rain Condos is a master planned high-rise neighbourhood in the heart of Oakville, located at the entrance to the historic Kerr Village. Developer Empire Communites is moving two historic homes to make way for this two-tower development. The two homes are quite unique to the area in that they are the only two remaining which were built with shale taken from Lake Ontario. Located at 531 to 533 Kerr Street, the first Smith home was built in 1911 to resemble the 200 year-old home of the builder's parents from Aberdeen, Scotland. The second home was built two decades later in the 1930s.
Once the homes are moved to a safer locale, the developer plans to build 19 and 21-storey towers with a 5-storey podium connecting both towers at the base. Rain is designed by Graziani + Corazza Architects and will add 528 new condo units split amongst the two towers. Units will range in size from a compact 400 sq feet to a larger 1,030 sq ft unit. While the price to live in this new community starts from $259,000, right now Empire is offering the ability to buy with a 5% down payment as well as recieving either $10,000 off the purchase price or one year free maintanence and taxes.
Above is a rendering of what we can expect in the future, featuring the historic Smith Houses front and centre of the community. Empire expects to wrap up construction on Rain late next year. In the meantime, check out the dataBase listing below for more info, or join the discussion in one of the associated Forum threads!
| Related Companies: | Graziani + Corazza Architects, Patton Design Studio |
