Toronto Grain Lofts | 40.2m | 11s | Gairloch | Gabriel Fain Architects

[AlbertC]

Massively Different: Grain Lofts and the Mass Timber Movement

Grain Lofts by Gairloch Developments are Unique Grain Lofts condo suites that are coming to the Junction Triangle

streetsoftoronto.com

 

[PMT]

 

[AlbertC]

Drove by (in the rain) this morning. Demolition on the Sporting Club hasn't begun yet. But I noticed that the auto repairs shop next door on the corner, that's not included for this development, has been fenced off.

 

[artyboy123]

Rezoning Application

Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment for an 8-storey mixed-use building with ground floor retail space along Dupont Street and the retention of the existing building at 3 Osler Street. Overall, the proposed development includes an approximate total gross floor area of 8,616.6 square metres, comprised of approximately 8,301.5 square metres of residential GFA and 315.1 square metres of retail GFA, resulting in a density of 4.55 FSI. A total of 106 new residential units are proposed, in a mix of unit types. Official Plan Amendment seeks to redesignate 3 Osler St from Neighbourhoods to Mixed Use Areas.

A major rumor coming into town...

 

[rdaner]

If anyone hasn't been to this stretch of Dupont I highly recommend it. Interesting retail and restaurants and some great infill. The perfect central city neighbourhood.

 

[Towered]

Hopefully another Gairloch!!

 

[concrete_and_light]

I've been figuring something would happen on this auto lot on the corner sooner or later. Hopefully we get something good here!

3 Osler doesn't really look particularly interesting or notable I'm not sure why it's being kept — especially since the house is raised up from street level. Seems pretty impractical. I find it hard to imagine how it's going to be integrated into this new building or why.

Retail along Dupont is good — I wish they had retail or employment up Osler as well which would fit well with the employment uses in the garages on the other side of the street. Maybe it'll be a corner unit and we can dream of a side patio on Osler maybe?

The site from Dupont:

 

[AlbertC]

Some slight challenges here for future grade level treatment with the corner sloping downward from both the north and eastward directions. But otherwise, this is a good spot to intensify and better improve that section of the streetscape.

Something similar to Grain Lofts, planned for the lot beside it, should bookend that corner nicely.

 

[ProjectEnd]

I was wondering when this was going to hit the AIC. They were drilling in the parking lot mid-summer.

That said, 106 units in 8 storeys on this lot?????

 

[artyboy123]

As per's @Northern Light analysis

This is also a SFH, and a duplex, 3 is the door on the right, in the image below. Nothing significant can occur here w/o a larger assembly.

 

[Northern Light]

Ok.......

So this one has been resubmitted..............

We actually have a new thread because of it; but the address matches this location.

@Art Tsai will wish to make note that 3 Osler will remain a house, but is now technically part of a proposal for this site.

This is the 3 Osler thread:

3 Osler | ?m | 8s

Rezoning Application Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment for an 8-storey mixed-use building with ground floor retail space along Dupont Street and the retention of the existing building at 3 Osler Street. Overall, the proposed development includes an approximate total gross...

urbantoronto.ca

New AIC Link:

Application Details

www.toronto.ca

From the Docs:

Oooh, this one is Gabriel Fain...........I've been liking his stuff.

Site Plan:

Park: 39 resident spaces to 106 units; ratio: 0.37

Elevators: 2 Ratio: 1.88 elevators per 100 units.

*****

Comments:

There's nothing wrong w/the scale here at all.

But we all know how I feel about sidewalk overhangs. Truth be told that brick detailing is about as nice an overhang as you're going to get, so I feel mixed on that.

I don't mind the overall form, love the brick; but I'm very mixed on the balconies here and feel like on the lower levels in particular a treatment more like 55 Mercer with the old factory/warehouse style windows might be more appealing.

On streetscape, there are no trees proposed on the Dupont frontage, this is a challenging frontage, still I feel some greening ought to be plausible here, particularly if that overhang were removed.

 

[goodcitywhenfinished]

We need more Gabriel Fain in this city. One of the few offices actually pushing a coherent Toronto vernacular for mid rise residential and mixed use. In other words, the buildings feel very responsive to their contexts and the history of architecture in this city specifically.

 

[junctionist]

The materials are great. A lot of developers would plunk down some generic pile of charcoal bricks and glass, as if only the Annex should have sophisticated contextualism.

On the other hand, the geometric design comes off as chunky and overly repetitive in terms of the design motifs. I wish they did a better job of following the gentle curve of the roadway in the design of the facade.

There absolutely should be room for greenery in front (including trees), as the existing streetscape feels harsh and more like a place to bike through than to visit. A lack of greenery along the street is my main criticism of the otherwise beautiful 530 Indian Grove mixed-use condo in the Junction (marketed as DuKe Condos).

 

[Towered]

I had a strong feeling this would happen. It didn't make sense to not include the body shop at the corner...

 

[artyboy123]

New renderings were added to the database. The storey count changed from 6 storey to 8 storey. The height changed from 20.00m to 32.31m. The unit count changed from 28 units to 106 units. The total amount of parking changed from 9 parking to 42 parking.

Rendering taken from the arch plan via rezoning submission.

@Northern Light I moved the previous "3 Osler" Thread to here now since it is part of the development.