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Hume: Giving the past a future
2011/03/05
By Christopher Hume
Read More: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/948754--hume-giving-the-past-a-future?bn=1
Look on one street and you’ll see developers tearing down the city’s architectural history as fast as they can. Look on another and they’re making heritage the centrepiece of a new project. Traditionally, demolition has been the preferred option. Even today, that’s still the case; an empty site is more desirable than one graced — God forbid — with a few Gothic-revival houses from the 1870s. Slowly but surely, however, that’s beginning to change. Toronto developers, those stalkers of the bottom line, are waking to the economic potential of heritage. One wouldn’t want to overstate the case — just weeks ago, the old Empress Hotel building at Yonge and Gould was destroyed by arson — but there are reasons for optimism. The Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor is a good example, so are the National Ballet School on Jarvis St. and the Wychwood Barns. All three projects — and there are others — are instances where old and new have been integrated to the greater advantage of both — as well as Toronto.
Yet anyone wandering around Charles, St. Thomas and Sultan streets might rightly be confused about the city’s real feelings about heritage. To make way for a new condo tower on the north side of Charles just west of St. Thomas, a row of exquisite 19th-century houses was recently torn down. By contrast, a development planned steps away on the south side of Sultan, east of St. Thomas, will enthusiastically incorporate a number of handsome Romanesque heaps from the 1880s, possibly designed by the great E.J. Lennox. But measured in time and money, the difference between keeping heritage and killing it is huge. It’s no mystery why most builders would rather start from scratch. “If we didn’t have the heritage component the project would already have been finished,†says Patrick Quigley, president of St. Thomas Commercial Developments, now building on Sultan. “We have spent a couple of years working on it. The heritage part was a huge constraint.â€
Heritage architect Michael McClelland of ERA Architects, who has consulted on many heritage projects, confirms Quigley’s observations. “It’s such a difficult process with the city,†he explains. “Usually developers hate it. But you end up with a much better project when you take contextual issues into consideration.†In this case, the issue is six three-storey houses that have stood on the site about 130 years. They remain in use, but the interiors have not fared well. The temptation would be to tear the whole lot down. Because Quigley’s firm owns the whole block, and has already constructed a 28-storey condo on the corner of St. Thomas and Charles, he could afford a more relaxed approach to the Sultan Street site. Rather than go for another tall tower, Quigley opted for a midrise building nestled above the heritage houses, or at least the facades.
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A development planned on the south side of Sultan St. east of St. Thomas will enthusiastically incorporate a number of handsome Romanesque residences from the 1880s.
2011/03/05
By Christopher Hume
Read More: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/948754--hume-giving-the-past-a-future?bn=1
Look on one street and you’ll see developers tearing down the city’s architectural history as fast as they can. Look on another and they’re making heritage the centrepiece of a new project. Traditionally, demolition has been the preferred option. Even today, that’s still the case; an empty site is more desirable than one graced — God forbid — with a few Gothic-revival houses from the 1870s. Slowly but surely, however, that’s beginning to change. Toronto developers, those stalkers of the bottom line, are waking to the economic potential of heritage. One wouldn’t want to overstate the case — just weeks ago, the old Empress Hotel building at Yonge and Gould was destroyed by arson — but there are reasons for optimism. The Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor is a good example, so are the National Ballet School on Jarvis St. and the Wychwood Barns. All three projects — and there are others — are instances where old and new have been integrated to the greater advantage of both — as well as Toronto.
Yet anyone wandering around Charles, St. Thomas and Sultan streets might rightly be confused about the city’s real feelings about heritage. To make way for a new condo tower on the north side of Charles just west of St. Thomas, a row of exquisite 19th-century houses was recently torn down. By contrast, a development planned steps away on the south side of Sultan, east of St. Thomas, will enthusiastically incorporate a number of handsome Romanesque heaps from the 1880s, possibly designed by the great E.J. Lennox. But measured in time and money, the difference between keeping heritage and killing it is huge. It’s no mystery why most builders would rather start from scratch. “If we didn’t have the heritage component the project would already have been finished,†says Patrick Quigley, president of St. Thomas Commercial Developments, now building on Sultan. “We have spent a couple of years working on it. The heritage part was a huge constraint.â€
Heritage architect Michael McClelland of ERA Architects, who has consulted on many heritage projects, confirms Quigley’s observations. “It’s such a difficult process with the city,†he explains. “Usually developers hate it. But you end up with a much better project when you take contextual issues into consideration.†In this case, the issue is six three-storey houses that have stood on the site about 130 years. They remain in use, but the interiors have not fared well. The temptation would be to tear the whole lot down. Because Quigley’s firm owns the whole block, and has already constructed a 28-storey condo on the corner of St. Thomas and Charles, he could afford a more relaxed approach to the Sultan Street site. Rather than go for another tall tower, Quigley opted for a midrise building nestled above the heritage houses, or at least the facades.
.....
A development planned on the south side of Sultan St. east of St. Thomas will enthusiastically incorporate a number of handsome Romanesque residences from the 1880s.