Yesterday morning I went on a ravine walk from Summerhill up to St. Clair Avenue East. Toronto’s ravine system is easily the most unique feature of our city’s geography. Architect Larry Wayne Richards once described the topography of Toronto as San Francisco inverted. They have hills and we have valleys.
Toronto’s ravines serve, among other things, as a recreational treasure, a magnet for nice homes, and as an important component of this city’s water infrastructure. But as you walk through many of our ravines, you can’t help but think that we could and should value them a lot more.
I appreciate that there needs to be a balance between environmental conservation and recreational use, but that doesn’t seem to be the primary issue. It is neglect. And it is probably because they are out of sight and out of mind for many people. Toronto’s ravines are an undervalued asset.
This morning I was at 55 St. Clair Avenue West for IBI Group’s annual general meeting. And at this meeting their CEO, Scott Stewart, officially launched a new accelerator called the Smart City Sandbox.
Here is a description of what that is taken from a press release that was also published this morning:
The Sandbox is a smart city-themed accelerator, focused on bringing innovative new products and systems to urban environments that improve the quality of life for residents. A technology hub that supports small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as entrepreneurs and start-ups, the Smart City Sandbox will operate out of a designated space at IBI Group’s Toronto headquarters, be open to global applications, and officially open doors with its first smart city-themed cohort in September 2018.
And here is a photo from this morning:
Earlier today Slate announced that King Street Food Company will be bringing a new Buca restaurant concept to the north west corner of Yonge + St. Clair in 2018.
(BlogTO calls Buca one of the best Italian restaurants in the city.)
Below is a rendering of the new podium design at 2 St. Clair West, which is where they’ll be going. The design/rendering is by Gensler (the same talented group that did Ravine Bench).
Slate Asset Management is proud to be a founding partner of the Smart City Sandbox and we’re thrilled that it will live at Yonge + St. Clair in midtown Toronto.
Our role is to provide our domain expertise as asset managers and developers, and to offer participants in the program access to real-world building systems and data from our holdings in the area.
For more info, go here.
And if you were at (or listening to) the meeting this morning, I’m sure you noticed something that we talk a lot about on this blog. To thrive today, virtually every company now has to think and act like a technology company. IBI Group is doing precisely that.
The corner is going to be transformed into a double-height space and the architecture is meant to express that feeling of grandeur at the intersection. There will also be an outdoor patio at grade.
We are all super excited about this.
If you would like to read the full press release, you can do that here.
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