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o nt o or T of y d y Cit e n n e: e c K ur b o o S B p xt: a e M T
Ordnance Triangle: Five big towers (rental and condo) are expected here, four of them under way, some of them designed by Hariri Pontarini. The tallest will be 49 storeys. The eastern tip of “Garrison Point” and “Playground” is still undefined open space, the at-grade portion of Garrison Crossing, and future electric-train infrastructure.
Garrison Crossing: Foundations are in, major components are being made off-site and, if Metrolinx is still happy, the two-span stainless steel bridge for cyclists and pedestrians will be erected this summer. Designed by Pedelta with DTAH, it will connect Garrison Common across the Ordnance Triangle to a future South Stanley Park.
2 Tecumseth: At the old City abattoir, developer TAS has assembled KPMB, Public Work and ERA for a complex five-acre site that stretches 300 metres along the tracks. Proposed are an office and greenhouse cube above the abattoir and two very different residentials, all organized around the topographical shadow of the Garrison Creek ravine.
Wellington Destructor: This long-abandoned and much-studied former garbage incinerator, still owned by the City, is embraced by the irregular shape of the 2 Tecumseth properties – and by the visionaries of TAS and Public Work. Engineers have stabilized the huge heritage structure for its eventual undefined repurposing.
National Casket Factory: The brick buildings at 89-109 Niagara are designated heritage and will be left alone for now. A Core Architects condominium will put two cubic structures onto a common podium behind, and matching the massing of, the old factories (still live/work rentals). There are 268 units; completion target is Nov 2020. Minto Westside: This 1200-unit condominium by Wallman Architects – two volumes of 18 and 20 storeys on a full-site podium – will be topped off early this summer. Minto expects to see people and street-level retail moving in by this time next year.
Stackt Container Market: The asphalt empty lot at 28 Bathurst was made future parkland by City Council in April 2017. This summer the space will become a temporary (two or three year) assembly of sea containers filled with shops, studios and others. Designer LGA Architectural Partners promises “an experience of curated discovery.” Lower Garrison Creek Park: Work begins on this last corner of the Railway Lands when work on the bridge is complete; the park will then take about two years to build. Look for a landscape of creek bed, marshland and bluff, with play spaces and paths to CityPlace, the library and under the bridge to the fort, the Bentway and Garrison Crossing.
Block 36 North: Zeidler has designed a nine-story, 80-unit colour piece for the Toronto Community Housing Corporation to stand beside two existing KPMB towers. Dominus Capital won a contract in 2016 to build it but there’s been no sign of activity.
Bridge Rehabilitation: Restoration work, mostly underneath, will continue all summer. The crumbling footbridge to the fort’s eastern gate has been demolished and won’t be replaced (for what will appear, see the next F&D). No road work is planned for Bathurst south of Fort York Blvd, where the new buildings still don’t connect to the sidewalk.
We’re Surrounded: A guide to changes on the perimeter Fort York National Historic Site
The Bentway: See an update on page 9.
The new pedestrian bridge to the east gate of the fort on June 17, 1931, in two views the Brick Magazine of photographs by Goss documenting work done at the fort during sion was made to remove the ramp entirely. This will finally allow for the proper rehabilitation of the fort’s landscape and ramparts on that side. With the stairs at the south-west corner of Fort York Blvd and Bathurst, improved connections down
by Toronto official photographer Arthur Goss. They are in a new exhibition in the 1930s. Source: City of Toronto Archives through the library and into the coming Lower Garrison Creek Park, and from the west along a planned trail on the north side of the fort, the east gate will eventually be far more accessible than it has been for years.
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