CAMH at College and Huron

[UrbanFervour]

There is hoarding around the CAMH property at College and Huron. The old trees have been removed. Does anybody know what is going on there?

My apologies to the moderator if there is already a thread for this. I am new to this site and could not find one.

 

[Mongo]

Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH) remake

 

[JasonParis]

He's referring to the College & Huron site though.

 

[Mongo]

That's strange, there is not a word about the College & Huron site on the CAMH website.

 

[whatever]

They've got permits for an expansion of the basement and some other small work:

http://app.toronto.ca/ApplicationStatus/details.do?folderRsn=2525636

 

[Observer Walt]

CAMH does not own the site at College St. It was sold several years ago to private owners, and CAMH will be moving out in due course.

 

[Student99]

CAMH does not own the site at College St. It was sold several years ago to private owners, and CAMH will be moving out in due course.

really?! It's a massive place... They're going to consolidate everything to Queen?
If so, might liven the area up a bit, depending on what replaces it.


I was guessing that they were going to expand the first floor podium and put some retail close to the street for extra income. With U of T right there, fast food joints in the area do pretty well.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I was guessing that they were going to expand the first floor podium and put some retail close to the street for extra income. With U of T right there, fast food joints in the area do pretty well.

The plan was to eventually consolidate the College & Spadina/Russell Street and Donwoods locations into 1001 Queen W but I've heard College Street may stay, whether that's true or not. If so I've thought this would make a great condo/loft conversion once CAMH pulls out and expand retail out to the street and convert the groud level areas to a small mall as I'd hate to see this building torn down. Russell Street can come down and do whatever back there, it could be a good acquisition for U of T.

 

[Tulse]

I used to work at the College St. site, and one major issue with moving the facilities there is the huge positron emission tomography (PET) scanner lab in the basement, which includes a large particle accelerator used to make radioactive tracers for the scanner. As I understand it, that device cannot practically be moved from its location, and it would be very expensive to just abandon it.

 

[savevp]

Oh, that definately complicates things. Maybe they keep it running in its own area but redevelop the rest of the building?

 

[Tulse]

That's possible, but it would be pretty awkward to have the rest of CAMH, including all the research patients, off at 1001 Queen, and have to constantly be shuttling them back and forth to College and Spadina for scans. I'm sure that some sort of solution has been developed, but this was one of the big issues when the merger that created CAMH happened, and the possibility of consolidating to 1001 Queen was first suggested.

 

[adma]

If it's a condo conversion, maybe call it Napoleon XIV

 

[CML]

.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47034510@N08/5086606637/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/47034510@N08/5087206012/

 

[Tulse]

Interesting -- the hoarding blurbage certainly implies that the building will remain CAMH, which is contrary to the whole consolidation move to 999 Queen W.

 

[junctionist]

It makes sense that they'd want to have a research centre with the U of T. Isolating themselves from the U of T could be detrimental to their research capabilities.