Earlier this month, Shane Dingman wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail talking about TAS’ proposed development for 2 Tecumseth Avenue here in Toronto – the former home of Quality Meat Packers, a slaughterhouse. In the article there’s a quote from Mazyar Mortazavi, which I posted to my Instagram (as a story), but that I have been meaning to also post to the blog. So here it is:
“It’s not a conversation about towers good, towers bad: Mid-rise is the most expensive construction typology and it delivers effectively luxury housing, so it doesn’t respond to the needs of affordability,” he said. “We didn’t buy Tecumseth to build a bunch of condos and move on. We bought it because we wanted to pursue a vision around city building. You need density … the question is how do we actually deliver density that’s relevant today and relevant 50 years from now?”
He’s of course right about mid-rise construction costs. There are diseconomies of scale and other construction inefficiencies that we have talked about many times before on this blog. The result is one of the Catch-22s of city building. Mid-rise and small scale infill is often seen as desirable, but we also say that we need more affordable housing.
It’s doublethink.
Image: 2 Tecumseth by KPMB Architects for TAS
I’m hijacking Architect This City today to help my mother out and try something new.
She is looking to sell her 1 bedroom condo in the Radiocity Condominiums, located at 285 Mutual Street in Toronto. It’s called Radiocity, not because the developers thought New York was cool (my pet peeve), but because the site used to be the headquarters of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) way back when.
The 2-tower complex is located north of Carlton Street, between Church Street and Jarvis Street, and is adjacent to Canada’s National Ballet School (designed by KPMB Architects). It’s close to College Park and Yonge & College.
It was completed/registered in 2005 and won a number of design awards, including one from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Notable about the design is the way it integrates townhouses at the base, a public courtyard (with public art) between both towers, and the Ballet School. (A deal struck with the developer and the CBC allowed the school to buy their portion of the land for $1).
The buildings were developed by Context Development and designed by architectsAlliance, which is actually the same developer-architect duo behind the building I currently live and own in. I’m clearly a big fan.
The suite is about 560 square feet. It has 9’ exposed concrete ceilings. It has one full bathroom (tub), with a stacked washer and dryer. The bedroom is about 10’ x 10’ and is setback from the outside windows and enclosed with 3 x translucent sliding doors from C-Living. (I had them installed myself and they’re much better quality than the sliding doors you’ll find in most new builds.) The kitchen and living area is open concept, and there’s a north facing balcony that overlooks a quiet private courtyard. You basically get a view of trees, greenery, and the city. The suite is located on the 7th floor.
Here’s the floor plan:
And here are a few photos. They are all the right proportions and haven’t been stretched to make the space look bigger :)
The building has 24-hour concierge, visitor parking, and 3 floors of amenities. The amenities include a gym, aerobics room, party room, saunas, media room, boardroom, multiple lounges, 2 x guest suites, a party room, and a billiard room.
College subway station is a 7 minute walk (600m).
The Loblaws grocery store at Maple Leaf Gardens (which is awesome and also includes an LCBO) is a 5 minute walk (400m). Though I’m fairly certain you could do it in 4 minutes.
And you’re a 6 minute walk to Ryerson University (500m).
The asking price is C$349,900. The maintenance fee is $426.64 per month and the property taxes are $2,039.19 per year.
It’s a private sale, but she is willing to cooperate with buyer’s agents (2.5% commission). It’s currently furnished, but you can have it either way you want (unfurnished or furnished).
If you have any questions or would like to book a viewing, please send her or me an email. If you’re an agent just looking for a listing, please don’t. Thanks for reading. Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.
Image at the top of this post is from architectsAlliance.
Last summer a development application was submitted for a 57 storey mixed-use tower on the south end of Toronto’s historic Distillery District.
It’s the tower on the right hand side of the picture above. The 2 towers on the left are existing, although they’re quite recent. The development site is currently a parking lot and it abuts a railway corridor to the south.
The reason I bring up this project now is because I recently saw this notice go out from the Gooderham & Worts Neighbourhood Association. It’s an announcement for a public meeting that I believe just happened earlier this week (I think they meant to say 2015 instead of 2014).
After I saw the notice, I decided to share the rendering on social media to see what people thought of the proposal. The general consensus seemed to be that the tower looked a bit cookie cutter (though to be fair it’s hard to tell from renderings like this) and that 57 storeys was simply too tall for the area. I got comments back like “enough is enough.”
Now, I’m not here to say that 57 storeys is exactly the right height for this building and this location (though it might be), but I am saying that I don’t think it’s as important as most people think it is. I think we’ve become over-fixated on height, at the expense of other important design issues.
Part of this has to do with how we communicate projects and how we tell the story. If you look at the city’s website for this project, you’ll see that this is how it’s explained:
The City has received an Official Plan Amendment and Rezoning application for a 57-storey mixed use tower and a 5-storey commercial building containing 496 residential dwellings, 5,048 square metres of retail gross floor area, and 21,243 square metres of office gross floor area. The 5-storey commercial building is within the Distillery District, and the 57 storey tower is immediately south west of the Distillery District.
About the only thing that I think most people (outside of the industry) would understand are the heights of the buildings. Everything else – from the Official Plan Amendment to the number of square metres of gross retail area – is likely lost.
So it’s actually not surprising that most people just look at one or two renderings and the number of storeys, and then make a judgement call about whether or not it would be a positive thing for the city.
Now, I know why we communicate projects in such a clinical way. It’s to appear impartial. But there are so many other considerations when it comes to great city building.
How does the building meet the street? What are the first couple of floors like at eye-level? What’s the materiality? What would the experience be like for someone having a coffee on a patio outside of the building? What kind of commercial tenants will there be? Is there a unique leasing/programming strategy? What’s the overall vision for the project?
Again, I’m not saying that height is completely irrelevant. I simply fear that we might be losing sight of the bigger picture. The Distillery District is a magical place in Toronto. It’s hands down one of my favorite places to be. In fact, I’ll be there this weekend for a Winterlicious dinner. But I honestly couldn’t tell you how tall the existing towers are. Are they in the 40s?
I could, however, tell you exactly what it’s like to walk down the Distillery’s intimate cobblestone streets and sit on a patio with a beer in hand. It’s a beautiful thing.
Note: I have zero affiliation with this project.
Image: City of Toronto