Toronto Yonge City Square Residences | 117.09m | 32s | Gupta | Arcadis

Armour said:
What a dull building (like everything Gupta is behind).

What were the political reasons that killed the TTC's intention of moving here?
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It didn't help that the former TTC head office plan for this site was championed by then Mayor David Miller and his protege TTC Chair Adam Gee-I-Have-A-Boner

Criticism mounts over new TTC headquarters
http://www.thestar.com/news/ttc/2010/08/27/criticism_mounts_over_new_ttc_headquarters.html

New TTC head office plan draws fire
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/new-ttc-head-office-plan-draws-fire-1.877141

TTC lease deal could be dead, sources say
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/ttc-lease-deal-could-be-dead-sources-say/article564392/

Yonge & Wilson TTC site under fire
http://postcity.com/North-York-Post/October-2010/Yonge-amp-Wilson-TTC-site-under-fire/

At the time TTC already owned this site,.... but BuildToronto sold it for only $25million. If TTC head office proposal at this site would have went through, then TTC would have sold Davisville head office site,... it's midtown location closer to downtown and current building boom in midtown would have likely yield more than the $25million BuildToronto got for this site. Anyways,... because this TTC head office proposal got killed about 5 years ago,... now TTC (aka city of Toronto) will likely have to pay even more for another new TTC head office in today's market.

TTC wants to get out of ‘hellhole’ headquarters
Chair Josh Colle said the 1958 Davisville head office has staff working in “deplorable” conditions.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...ants-to-get-out-of-hellhole-headquarters.html

BTW,... while you may think Steve Gupta projects are dull,.... he's going to make out like a bandit here.
 
sunnyraytoronto said:
It didn't help that the former TTC head office plan for this site was championed by then Mayor David Miller and his protege TTC Chair Adam Gee-I-Have-A-Boner

Criticism mounts over new TTC headquarters
http://www.thestar.com/news/ttc/2010/08/27/criticism_mounts_over_new_ttc_headquarters.html

New TTC head office plan draws fire
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/new-ttc-head-office-plan-draws-fire-1.877141

TTC lease deal could be dead, sources say
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/ttc-lease-deal-could-be-dead-sources-say/article564392/

Yonge & Wilson TTC site under fire
http://postcity.com/North-York-Post/October-2010/Yonge-amp-Wilson-TTC-site-under-fire/

At the time TTC already owned this site,.... but BuildToronto sold it for only $25million. If TTC head office proposal at this site would have went through, then TTC would have sold Davisville head office site,... it's midtown location closer to downtown and current building boom in midtown would have likely yield more than the $25million BuildToronto got for this site. Anyways,... because this TTC head office proposal got killed about 5 years ago,... now TTC (aka city of Toronto) will likely have to pay even more for another new TTC head office in today's market.

TTC wants to get out of ‘hellhole’ headquarters
Chair Josh Colle said the 1958 Davisville head office has staff working in “deplorable” conditions.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...ants-to-get-out-of-hellhole-headquarters.html

BTW,... while you may think Steve Gupta projects are dull,.... he's going to make out like a bandit here.
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Thanks for the links. I actually hope the current TTC headquarters can be preserved. It's a beautiful building.

Yes, Gupta will make a hefty profit on this development. Unfortunately, that's all he and most developers in this city, care about.
 
Armour said:
Thanks for the links. I actually hope the current TTC headquarters can be preserved. It's a beautiful building.

Yes, Gupta will make a hefty profit on this development. Unfortunately, that's all he and most developers in this city, care about.
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TTC Davisville HeadOffice building might actually qualify as historical-heritage building,.... facade is worth preserving and I can easily imagine a new modern building using that exterior facade as their exterior or even interior atrium,.... but the internals of the current TTC HeadOffice building need to be gutted and burned!
 
I have a snagit of the image if that helps a bit..
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Looks like it belongs in a 1990's office park. Would be better if they axed the left and right sides and left the middle part as it's blandly inoffensive.
 
Couldn't the original design have worked with the new direction for the building? I'd rather have the parking lot than see this thing built as depicted.
 
Armour said:
Couldn't the original design have worked with the new direction for the building? I'd rather have the parking lot than see this thing built as depicted.
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The design of the new building is pretty similar to the original KPMG/Build TO design (see below). If you look at the draft zoning for the site, it's shrink-wrapped to death, leaving very little flexibility to change the design or massing. Because of the ravine lands right beside the site, the building footprint can't really be changed. I actually think the hotel portion on the west side helps break up the building in a nicer way.

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Office condo set for Toronto’s north Yonge strip
York Mills mixed-use office project will reflect natural landscape of the Don River

Yonge Park Plaza will offer companies the opportunity to own office space within a hotel setting, when the seven-storey glass building rises at the corner of Yonge Street and York Mills Road, near the North York business corridor in Toronto. In an area with not much opportunity to own commercial units and a lack of hotels, the Gupta Group is dually responding to both issues with its amentity-rich, mixed-use development.

Set by the Don River and currently serving as a parking lot, site plans call for an office condo of approximately 250,000 square feet, a 250-room full-service Hilton Hotel and about 20,000 square feet of retail. Construction is expected to begin by the end of this year.

“There’s a huge demand of people who want to own their own office so they don’t have to move or see rents going up,” says Steve Gupta, president of the Gupta Group. “I think it’s very attractive in Europe; it happens a lot, but in Canada this is almost new. There’s a great demand and a lot of people are already interested to buy space here.”
More.................https://www.reminetwork.com/articles/office-condo-set-for-torontos-north-yonge-strip/
 
Unless the investment to build a hotel here is the most profitable, it would seem, at least to me, that there is some demand for these com condo units.
 
Application: New Building Status: Under Review

Location: 4050 YONGE ST
TORONTO ON

Ward 16: Eglinton-Lawrence

Application#: 16 254645 BLD 00 NB Accepted Date: Nov 30, 2016

Project: Multiple Use/Non Residential New Building

Description: Construct a 9 storey hotel - (Hilton Hotel) - (14,085m2) and a 7 storey office building shell (24,668m2) with retail space shell (1156m2) and TTC area (148m2)
 
Seeing Gupta's recent cancellation of their sold-out Icona project in Vaughan,.... it should be noted sales of the office-condo units here is quite slow since previous provincial Liberal government implemented foreign real estate buyer tax - as per Tridel Hullmark Centre, most of these office-condo units are brought by oversea foreign investors. Since those buyers are now gone,..... hmmm,....
 
sunnyraytoronto said:
Seeing Gupta's recent cancellation of their sold-out Icona project in Vaughan,.... it should be noted sales of the office-condo units here is quite slow since previous provincial Liberal government implemented foreign real estate buyer tax - as per Tridel Hullmark Centre, most of these office-condo units are brought by oversea foreign investors. Since those buyers are now gone,..... hmmm,....
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Gupta's recent cancellation of Icona was related to them not being allowed by a restrictive covenant on the original purchase agreement of the land to build condos on the Icona site. If there are issues at this site, they are not related to the Icona issues.

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Gupta/EastonGroup is a small Mom&Pop family business; this project and Icona shows their project site selection and project model have room for improvement.

Just because they run a chain of hotels, it doesn’t mean all their project need a hotel component. And if they want to build hotel, then build hotel,.... instead of adding residential-condo or office-condo into the mix; here, it’s the office-condo part that’s falling apart due to lack of sales.
 
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