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A new office, residential, and retail development has begun construction on a bustling stretch of Toronto's King Street West. Earlier today, developers Allied Properties REIT and RioCan announced that plans are moving forward with the long-evolving site at 602-620 King Street West, to be known as the King Portland Centre. While confirming that construction began earlier this month with site mobilization, today's announcement comes with the revelation that the mixed-use commercial/residential complex designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects will be anchored by e-commerce powerhouse Shopify, who will lease 112,000 square feet, or 44% of the building's office space.
One of four 50/50 joint ventures planned by Allied and RioCan in Downtown Toronto, the King Portland Centre is scheduled for an early 2019 completion, at which time the office component will be managed by Allied and the retail and residential components will be managed by RioCan. Michael Emory, President & CEO of Allied, said in a prepared statement “I’m delighted that we’ve commenced construction of one of our larger projects, King-Portland Centre. This project involves the integration of new construction with a preserved heritage structure, a format that we believe has durable appeal to office, retail and residential users.”
Integrated with a existing heritage structure occupying the northwest corner of King and Portland, the new structure will contain a main 12-storey volume housing 255,565 square feet of office space and 13,035 square feet of retail space fronting King Street West. Attached to the 12-storey office component will be a 14-storey volume fronting onto Adelaide Street West (with shorter floor heights and an overall shorter height than the office tower) containing approximately 116 rental residential units.
On the east side of the site, the heritage building at 602 King West will remain leased while construction proceeds to the west of it. The commercial property at 606 King where restaurant Valdez is located will remain open for an indefinite period after the start of construction, although it will eventually be demolished along with neighbouring 620 King West to make way for the new structure.
The project aims to meed LEED and CS (Core & Shell) Platinum standard, integrating a number of operational and environmental systems to improve building efficiency. The experience of workers and the public will be improved with the addition of a network of laneways and woonerfs serving the site's interior.
Additional information can be found in our dataBase entry for the King Portland Centre, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum thread, or leave a comment using the space provided at the bottom of this page.
| Related Companies: | entro, Hariri Pontarini Architects, Myles Burke Architectural Models, Peter McCann Architectural Models Inc., RioCan Living, RJC Engineers, Trillium Architectural Products |
