Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.
This week AN announced its 2022 Best of Design Awards, which is intended to celebrate outstanding built and unbuilt architectural projects from around the world. And this year I am excited to share that Studio Gang was awarded two editors’ picks: one for 11 Hoyt in Brooklyn (Built-Residential, Multi-Unit) and one for One Delisle here in Toronto (Unbuilt-Residential, Multi-Unit). Selfishly, it of course makes me very happy to see our project being celebrated for its architecture. Go team! But from a less selfish perspective, it also makes me very happy to see Toronto being recognized in these awards. Because this is about city building, right?
There is a growing trend in Toronto right now where people want to build on top of existing buildings. We are proposing to do this in midtown at 1 St. Clair Avenue West and, this week, this proposal was announced for the Cambridge Suites Hotel in the Financial District (shout out to Len Abelman).
Generally speaking, this is something that an owner and/or developer might want to do when you have an older building and there is now “unused” density on the site. By “unused” I mean that if you were developing the land for the first time today, the resulting density would be higher than what is currently on the site.
Alongside this, it can also be a way to reposition the existing asset. In the case of the Cambridge Suites site, it sounds like the existing 231 hotel keys will be converted to residential.
At some point in the process you will probably also look at whether it is “better” to tear down the existing building and build new, or whether you should try and build on top. The former is obviously very bad from an embodied carbon perspective but, for whatever reason, this may be the preferred option.
If you decide to build on top, your structural engineer will love you because the result — for them — will be a far more interesting project compared to a typical high-rise. But interesting comes with its challenges. Here’s how your structural solution might work:
It’s a complicated project that will require a 10-metre-high bridge structure to be built atop the existing hotel where the roof is removed. The bridge will help bear the weight of the new tower, explains Len Abelman, principal at Toronto’s WZMH Architects, the firm designing the redevelopment for the property’s owner, Centennial Hotels Ltd.
“It’s not a common technique, it’s challenging. We worked with a firm called RJC Engineers to do simulations of the massing and loading of weight and the lateral forces the building will face, to make sure it will work,” Mr. Abelman says.
“Other projects in Toronto have added floors before, but it’s usually done with a big exoskeleton that goes over the entire building. This one uses technology that transfers some of the weight to the columns and the floors of the existing structure below,” he says.
This is similar to what we are doing in midtown, except that we are proposing to retain all of the the existing facades along with the building. It is certainly not the easiest way to build. But we are likely to see more, not less, of it in the city.
It is evidence of the immense development pressures that certain areas of our region are facing. When you restrict new supply, the market will find somewhere to build, even if it involves a lot of structural gymnastics.
The development team at Slate Asset Management is again hiring for our Toronto office. We are looking for a coordinator to join the team and gain exposure to all aspects of our projects — everything from acquisitions to construction and close-out.
For those of you who maybe aren’t familiar with all of our projects, feel free to check out Slate’s website or the “Developments” menu on this blog.
We are always open to a variety of backgrounds; however, for this role, our ideal candidate would be someone with a bit of a design and/or construction background. Though I would encourage you to apply even if you don’t feel like you fit this description.
Broadly speaking, our ambition with all coordinators is to have them quickly take on more responsibility and ultimately lead a portfolio of their own development projects. If this sounds interesting to you, the best way to apply is over on LinkedIn.
Please also feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions about the opportunity.
At the time of writing this post, the applications (zoning by-law amendment and site plan control) hadn’t yet hit the city’s website. So here’s some information about the project, including its big moves:
This is the first mixed-use residential project in Toronto designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). The proposal includes residential, office, and retail spaces.
Architecture by OMA and WZMH Architects. Heritage by ERA Architects. Landscape and public realm by Claude Cormier + Associés. Planning by Urban Strategies. Structure by Stephenson Engineering.
The principal architectural idea is to create a vertical urban village through a series of “urban rooms” interspersed throughout the tower. These spaces would serve as amenities for the building and house a variety of different functions. See above rendering.
The proposal introduces three important public realm moves: (1) a new public plaza that pays homage to the site’s former neighbor to the east — Second City; (2) a new mid-block pedestrian connection running north-south from Richmond Street East to Lombard Street; and (3) an outdoor public art gallery featuring oversized art tableaus.
The site currently houses one designated heritage building (86 Lombard Street), and the design contemplates relocating and fully retaining this building on the eastern edge of the site. Once you see the drawings, you’ll fully understand why this was the most logical move.
The entire project team is very excited to get this proposal out and into the world. And we hope that you will see it as being representative of our ongoing and lasting commitment to elevating architecture, sustainability, culture, and city building in Toronto.
I took the above photo this morning from the 7th floor of Junction House. It is a view south toward High Park. More specifically though, it is the view from the second and upper floor of what will ultimately become suite 607 (a suite that happens to be still available for sale).
Now that the building is almost topped out, I’m planning to run through a bunch of the suites with my camera and photograph all of the different views. I don’t think I’ve seen something like this done before and I think it could be a pretty cool little photography project.
Buildings take a long time. Slate started investing in the Yonge & St. Clair area in 2013 and we acquired the first parcel for One Delisle in 2015. And here we are now in 2022. When it’s all said and done, it’ll be over a decade.
So it’s important to celebrate the milestones when you can, and we did that today with the official ground breaking event for One Delisle. It takes an army of smart and dedicated minds to realize a project like this, so a huge thanks to everyone involved. You know who you are.
Today was a real milestone. But I’m looking forward to concocting some others so that we have more reasons to celebrate as we complete this very rewarding marathon.
Today, Slate Asset Management announced its latest condominium project: Corktown. Named after its neighborhood, Corktown is located in downtown Hamilton just south of the GO Centre station.
Since then, the design has evolved to include a tower on the southeast corner of the block (pictured above) and a mid-rise building along John Street South. This site is also now fully zoned.
So it’s go time. Phase one, called Corktown East, will launch this summer and condo pre-registration is live as of today. To register, head over here.
Slate Asset Management, RAD Marketing, and the top producing brokers for One Delisle were fortunate enough to be able to tour a Studio Gang-designed project in Amsterdam today called the Q Residences. A huge thanks to the developers — Kroonenberg Groep and Neoo — for their time and hospitality this afternoon.
Here are two photos of the exterior:
The building, which is a mixed-income rental apartment, is still under construction, and occupancy is expected sometime this fall. The structure is poured-in-place concrete, but the balconies were all pre-fabricated and installed on site. You can tell this by looking near the top of the above photo.
Here are a few other interesting takeaways from the tour:
– 40% of the complex is social housing (which is housed in an entirely separate but similarly impressive building); this is a mandatory requirement
– The land is owned by the city and is being leased to the developers; the lease rate was discounted to account for the social housing requirement
– The entire building uses in-floor heating and cooling, so there are no ducts or bulkheads in any of the suites (slabs are all about 300mm to accommodate this)
– The balconies all have a rainwater collection system, which is mounted and concealed on the exterior of the building (it rarely goes below freezing here I am told)
– The parking ratio for cars is very roughly about 0.5 per unit and the bicycle parking ratio is very roughly 3 per unit (remember this is the bicycle capital of the world)
– Structural system is mostly shear walls; they also have some post-tensioning in the slabs
– Less reliance on metal wall studs; instead they use a more expensive block-like system that offers more rigidity and better sound attenuation (I will look for the exact specification)
– There is also this odd/interesting requirement that all of the suites have an operable window that can provide both natural ventilation and sound attenuation; in other words, it needs to let air in and block sound at the same time
Here’s what that looks like at Q Residences:
We don’t have a requirement like this in Toronto and so that’s why I used the word odd. We have ventilation and sound requirements, but they don’t need to be solved simultaneously in this same way.
Why I also think this is interesting is because I think it speaks to a greater reliance on natural ventilation over active mechanical systems. In Toronto, the underlying thinking is that if it’s too hot and noisy, it’s just a matter of shutting your windows and turning on the AC.
Of course, we obviously we have to manage around a very different climate, so I don’t mean this as a criticism of Toronto codes. It’s just an observation.
If you aren’t familiar with the Q Residences, or the work of Neoo and Kroonenberg, I would encourage you to search around online. The project is gorgeous and so is the rest of their work.
It has been cold and snowy in Toronto lately, which is great if you’re looking to shred pow on a snowboard, but suboptimal if you’re trying to construct buildings. It pains me deep inside my bone marrow when we lose productive days to weather. But what can you do?
I was, however, thrilled to see this first glimpse (pictured above) of the lobby / co-working space at Junction House this morning. The slightly elevated section (which is the point of view of the above rendering) is the co-working area.
The reason it’s elevated is that we needed the clearance below for our parking ramp. We thought about trying to make it retail, but a place for residents to hang out and work seemed like a pretty good idea.
A lot of us on the team are big fans of a great hotel lobby bar, but that’s kind of challenging to do in a residential condominium. This is maybe the next best thing. It’s been very popular with purchasers so far, but I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs in real life.
The development team at Slate is hiring once again for our Toronto office. We are looking for a coordinator/analyst to join the team and work on all aspects of our projects (which span the full lifecycle of development and are pretty cool if you ask me). If you’ve read some of my past hiring posts (examples here and here), there isn’t a lot more that I can say about our company, our culture, and our approach to development.
But what I would emphasize is that our culture is paramount. I am biased, but I think we have a great team that works well together and that cares deeply about what we do. All of this is important, which is why in the past I have encouraged candidates to go beyond their resume and share something else like their online presence or a link to something that would help us get to know them a little better.
If you would like to learn more about the position and/or apply, please do that over here on LinkedIn. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter.
