Article in today's National Post.
"80-storey condo proposed for Yonge-Bloor
With shopping mall: Kazakhstan developer needs city approval
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Tuesday, March 27, 2007
A developer from Kazakhstan will announce plans next week for a "nearly" 80-storey condominium on the corner of Yonge and Bloor streets, which, if built, would be the tallest residential tower in Canada.
Bazis International, based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, plans the tower, with a shopping mall at its base, for a one-acre site on the southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor, Vicki Griffiths, a spokeswoman for the company, said yesterday.
Kolter Property Co. sold 1 Bloor Street East to Bazis International at the beginning of the year. Four years ago a company called Nastapoka Holdings, a joint venture involving Kolter, had won city approval for a 60- storey tower on the site, but did not go ahead with the project.
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Font: ****Bazis won approval last summer for a 34-storey condominium building on the east side of Balmuto street just south of Bloor; Ms. Griffith said construction on that tower begins this spring. Canadian architects Page + Steele and Zeidler Partnership Architects are working with Bazis on its projects overseas.
The 80-storey tower, designed by Toronto architect Roy Varacalli, has yet to win city approval.
"There has been a lot of encouragement from the city," Ms. Griffiths said yesterday.
Bazis plans a news conference next Thursday on the top of Manulife Centre to announce details of the plan. Local councillor Kyle Rae will attend, the company said.
The company had no drawings to release yesterday and said an older picture, available on the Internet, is not an accurate drawing of the project.
As for Toronto's apparently insatiable appetite for condominium towers, Ms. Griffiths said, "It just blows my mind.
"There's a tremendous amount of people immigrating into the country and they are conditioned to live in buildings, in very crowded cities," she said. "And we [Canada] are offering good value on a global basis. There are also empty nesters, who say, 'I've raised my children, I want to buy a condo and enjoy life.'"
On its Web site, Bazis says that, "the company has grown from a modest Kazakhstan-based company into an industry leader in the design and construction of residential communities, office towers, government buildings, hotels, apartment buildings, theatres, shopping malls and industrial complexes."
Among its projects is a three tower complex in Almaty, including a 54-storey building that will become the highest building in Kazakhstan, an oil-rich former Soviet republic that gained notoriety in last year's hit film, "Borat."
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