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25 Comments

news

Transforming Yonge & Bloor

By Marc Lostracco

yongebloorskyscraper.jpgIt features our busiest subway station, it’s got one of the most trafficked intersections in Toronto, and it’s the psychological split between uptown and downtown. Despite such importance and notoriety, Yonge and Bloor has remained inexplicably dingy and architecturally bland.
Now, a Kazakhstani development firm and local architect Roy Varacalli want to change all of that with a tower which, at eighty storeys, would be the tallest residential building in Canada (in terms of floors). Rising to 205 metres, the development would be almost forty metres higher than the neighbouring Manulife Centre and only twenty metres shorter than the Toronto Dominion tower.
Currently featuring the ugly, squat City Optical store and a Harvey’s restaurant, 1 Bloor Street East has been on the development radar for some time now. In 2003, the City approved a plan by Kolter Property to build a 60-storey condo that would feature a Silver City-type movie theatre and retail stores at grade. That plan fell through, and the property was sold to Bazis International [warning: annoying browser resizing].
Bazis’ design includes a four-storey double-height podium at the base that would feature high-end retail, demarcating a new entry point for Yorkville’s celebrated shopping district. Previous renderings released for the location are now innacurate, with the latest revision at right, looking southeast.
The yet-to-be-named project isn’t Bazis’ only development in the area: their Crystal Blu condo development is soon to be built a stone’s throw away on 21 Balmuto Street. Architecture firm Burka Varacalli Architects Inc. is also building the neo-Deco Uptown Residences right next to Crystal Blu (on the site of the former Uptown Theatre) and the nearby condo tower at Bellair and Bloor.
The project also recalls this year’s announcement of the Trump International Hotel and Tower, which is also residential and will be higher at 324 metres, but will only house 70-storeys. Bazis’ Yonge and Bloor tower has yet to secure City approval, but is unlikely to meet any significant obstacles.
Image: Bazis International Inc. [High-resolution version]

Comments

  • dyee276750

    Surely if indeed this monstrosity ever gets built, than the developers will have to invite Borat Sagdiyev to do the ribbon cutting!

  • Lindsay

    Remember when the ROM was going to build a 40 storey tower two blocks east of this, but the university and general public outcry shut it down completely? Ahhh…the good old days!

  • rek

    It looks like a giant windshield scraper.

  • james

    uh oh.. if i’m interpreting that rendering correctly, the scotiabank tower is going to sink into the ground!

  • GH

    From The Star article on this: “This multi-part tower consists of two “masses” – as Varacalli calls them – one, curved, faces west, the second, straight-edged and square, looks east. The idea is to reflect the differences in the two halves of the city. The west side, according to Varacalli, is playful and loose. The east is more staid.”
    Discuss.

  • Marc Lostracco

    Too bad architectural renderings are always so stylized, with their false colours and wide, warped angles. The curved side reminds me a bit of the Pantages tower, but with balconies.

  • Dave

    This building looks like it would be more at home on the beach in West Palm or Ft. Lauderdale. It just looks so…FLORIDA.
    Reverse snow bird?

  • matty

    in the rush to be a real city toronto is building some of the most puke ugly buildings ever.

  • Wrenkin

    The Scotiabank building isn’t on Bloor.
    And the ROM building, which would have been West of this, was to be across the street from Queen’s Park, and to overlook Philosopher’s Walk. Yonge & Bloor is a little more appropriate for a tall building.
    Doing the math, those floors sound pretty cramped.

  • http://www.newmindspace.com Kevin Bracken

    It looks a bit like a grill on an air filter, but I think it will be a decent addition to the skyline nonetheless.

  • katie

    First, the horrible monstrosity now attached to the ROM…and now this.
    I think we need to hire less post-modern migrant architects which are trying to ‘spice’ up our well-needed remaining pieces of Toronto history.
    Who’s with me?!

  • Rob

    And what’s really historical about City Optical and Harvey’s anyway?

  • Borat

    Eeez niiice.

  • scott Dobson

    Burka Varacalli Architects Inc., the people resonsible for some of the horrible barrracks-like stacked townhouses so loved by our City Planning Department.

  • Marc Lostracco

    The most important thing for the ‘hood is what happens at the podium level and how accessible it feels from the street. I don’t think it looks that bad and I think it will very much improve the corner, especially by taking the visual emphasis off the hideous Hudson’s Bay Centre (built in 1974) and the 2 Bloor West borefest (1973). If it feels open and useful, it will help demarcate the subway hub and people will gather there.
    There really isn’t anything from about Bay east to Church that feels very accessible and interesting from the sidewalk, save for the Holt Renfrew Centre. Even one of those glass-walled TV news studios might make things interesting, similar to CNN’s and NBC’s in New York (and, of course, Much Music) because they usually come with restaurants and stores for tourists. It’s a perfect place for one.
    Considering that Bloor Street is so ridiculously wide in that section between Yonge and Church and then tapers back in on that lot, I’m hoping for a nice grade-level setback to accomodate crowds and even events (ha!—wishful thinking).

  • David Elliott

    It’s not just the appearance and size of the building that I dislike but I also wonder about the legitimacy of the money. Kazakhstan has a lot of criminal money floating around it and I wonder if the building’s not a source for money laundering.
    Anyone remember Cenrepoint East at Sherbourne and Shuter Sts. Turns out it was funded by crooked Chinese money from cops in Hong Kong. The TV show “Connections” made that quite clear.
    Are we in for more of the same with these people?

  • james

    Typical Torontonians bitching about a high building. It’s Yonge and Bloor for frig sakes! While the design could be improved and likely will, this is a good thing for Toronto. Nimby’s need to stop crying about every tall building that’s planned. If you want low buildings, move to cottage country.

  • elliot

    I don’t understand how anyone could possibly object to this. Have you seen Yonge/Bloor??? It’s hideous! So some foreign developer is going to erect a massive building with a design that’s too cool for school, is this a problem? Would you prefer the City Optical and Harveys? I think that glass podium will do wonders for the centre of our city.

  • Jeff Hume

    I don’t understand why there’s such outcry against tall buildings. I love them! First of all, high density development is good for the city. Would you rather this or 500 town houses out in the endless suburbs? Second of all, tall buildings are just damn cool.
    As long as we maintain interesting stretches along Yonge, I see no problem with putting tall buildings in.

  • Marc Lostracco

    Cities are more dynamic when they grow denser and higher rather than the scary epidemic of urban sprawl (Los Angeles as a perfect example, but also the GTA). Highrises bring more people, which bring more services and a theoretical increase in street-level activity. The danger of this, of course, is gentrification, but Yonge and Bloor hasn’t been a significant residential area until recently anyway. That strip of the city is already zoned for high-density development, and in this case, it’s actually improving a hideous, decrepit corner of a very important intersection.
    The other thing to consider that tall with a small floorplate is better for sunshine than short and squat, as were many developments of the 80s. The tower casts a longer shadow, but the area is shadowed for much less of the time.
    My main problem with developers is that the City should be demanding that they contribute significantly to an improvement program at street level for a series of blocks. 1 Bloor is adding some money to the existing Bloor redevelopment plan, but to get permission to build, developers should include funds to improve the sidewalks, street furniture, lighting standards, “identity” banners and signs, and public art. This does happen to some extent (especially pertaining to art, which the developer usually then skeezily passes-down to the condo buyer), but it doesn’t happen enough or to a significant degree.
    Now if only we could lessen Yonge and Bloor’s frustrating windtunnel effect…

  • dyee276750

    It would be really nice if that corner could have something as visually striking as Mississauga’s (God Damn!) sexy “Marilyn” designed by Yansong Ma.

  • Johannes

    Introducing the Gillette Mach 1000 facial annihilator!

  • tyler

    My question is how are they going to maintain that beautiful lense flare from the rendering on overcast days? I mean, its nothing without the lense flare.
    I would discuss the architecture, but this city is hopeless when it comes to any kind of cohesive idea. Frankly its perfect, just what I would expect from Toronto.

  • Mark Dowling

    The likely effect on Yonge/Bloor subway, already hideously busy at peak, is what scares me.

  • cloverbell

    ahem I’ll say this….you’re all afraid of change!
    This is a beautiful concept and I want to know how they’ll pull it of! :D