Wellesley parkland preserved
Condo plan aims to appease residents’ quest for open space
Lanterra Developments has unveiled its plans for a derelict 0.84-hectare lot at 11 Wellesley St., just west of Yonge St., a prime piece of downtown real estate that’s been the focus of a fierce community push for a public park.
Lanterra is proposing to build a condo tower as high as 50 storeys on a portion of the site, to be surrounded by a 0.6hectacre community park, thus addressing the wishes of local residents.
The condo also might include office space in its podium and retail stores at ground level, such as a restaurant backing onto the park.
The property, owned by the province but vacant for almost 20 years, was at the centre of a campaign by Ward 27 Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam lobbying the city to purchase it for use as green space.
Instead, the parcel was sold last month to Lanterra, which had been in competition with more than a dozen other developers.
“Very rarely do you have a marvelous piece of land such as this coming up for sale in such a prominent location,” says Lanterra principal Mark Mandelbaum.
His firm has several other projects in the area, including the Sutton Place hotel redevelopment at Bay and Wellesley Sts., a site at 501 Yonge St., and the completed Murano and Burano condo towers farther south on Bay. “This is probably one of the most prominent locations we’ve ever worked on.”
In the late1980s,11Wellesley was slated for a new ballet and opera house, to be designed by acclaimed architect Moshe Safdie. Those plans were shelved when a recession hit several years later and government funding for the project vanished.
Prior to the province putting the site up for sale last fall, it commissioned a study to determine the best use, according to Mandelbaum. The report recommended a multi-tower condo development with about 1,000 units.
Lanterra will use this framework as a starting point for its negotiations with the city, but Mandelbaum hopes it will be allowed to build something quite different.
Toronto bylaws require developers to set aside a certain portion of a property for parkland or pay cash in lieu of this parkland dedication.
Lanterra will be asking the city to pool its community obligations from its other projects in the area to create a more sizable park surrounding the single condo tower.
“With some creative planning and goodwill on the part of ourselves, the city and the neighbourhood, we believe it is possible to emerge from this with a plan that includes a park that could end up being a significant addition to the city’s public realm space,” Mandelbaum says.
The idea is that the park will serve as an urban sanctuary, shielded from the bustle on Wellesley and screened from the existing buildings along Bay and Yonge.
“We want this to be a park that you can really settle down in, not just walk through as an urban passage,” explains project architect Bruce Kuwabara of KPMB Architects. “We want it to be a place that people come to and frequently spend a lot of time in. That’s what makes a great park.”
The condo tower will be “curvaceous” in form, he adds, “especially on the corners — there are no sharp edges to the building at all.” (Inspiration for the design came from the curvy Aalto vase, he notes.)
The building will be along the Wellesley side of the property, “where we could clearly establish the front entrance and address,” Ku- wabara says, adding it will gradually transition from the eighth floor down to a threestorey podium, creating large, “sinuous” terraces as the tower steps down to meet the park.
“So if you’re living down low, regardless of the size of unit you’re in, you can step out and be in the park,” he says. “There’s an opportunity to locate this building so it has the minimum impact on the park, but the maximum integration with the park.”
The park’s centre will be closer to Breadalbane St., the road that runs along the southern portion of the site. Kuwabara hopes that the condo’s green space can integrate with that of the existing Central YMCA — located just to the south of the site — which has a leaf garden on the northern side of its property.
“If the park and the Y are working together — if not with programs, then just as an adjacent green space — I think it will augment things. It will be like one plus one is three.”
The area around 11 Wellesley has seen a significant amount of condo development in recent years, particularly along the Bay corridor. But there’s been no addition of green space.
“We’re building in an incredible period of history in the growth and development of this city,” says Kuwabara. “But what kind of city are we building? Are we building a city with parks and open spaces, or are we just making buildings?”
That’s been a serious concern for local residents, who have been lobbying for the creation of green space at 11 Wellesley. If all goes as Lanterra plans, that may become a reality.
“This has the potential to be one of the great urban parks of Toronto,” Kuwabara says.