1761 Wonderland Road North - 17s (Under Construction)

[jammer139]

No progress on the site. Might be because of the serious water issues with the portion of the pit that has been excavated being a lake. The soil appears to be some kind of clay and they may be going back to the engineers too rethink the groundwater plans.

[jammer139]

This project has stopped. Nothing has happened in months and even the ED Forming and Titan construction management signs have been removed from the fencing. Suspect now that York and ED Forming have had some kind of contract dispute and until York settles this or finds another general contractor this project will remain stalled.

[jammer139]

I think we may be seeing York Dev pumping the brakes on their many high rise proposals now. Construction was started on this 17s project last spring and they got as far as pouring some of the foundation footings when the work was halted. Given the interest rate increases the cost of financing these projects has gone dramatically higher as has the cost of materials and contractor labour. We could see alot of developers sitting on their hands until the finances make sense which could mean alot of contractors sending off workers to collect EI once their current sites are completed. On the other hand developers with inhouse construction teams and fat bank accounts might continue to build and take advantage of easier access to labour and materials. My guess is we may see the number of tower cranes standing dramatically decline over the next few years. Is York Dev the most likely to hit the brakes on proposals compared to Old Oak, Tricar, Medallion, Ayerswood? And what does that mean for contractors like Concrete Forming(CF), Middlesex CF, EllisDon, Hayman?

[Djeffery]

Are you saying you think York is more likely than Ayerswood to put a pause on new building? I think it's way more likely that Ayerswood finishes their current building and the rest of that lot sits empty for several years or gets sold. Other than Reservoir Hill 10 years ago, what else have they built?

[jammer139]

I suspect both York and Ayerswood will likely not start any new residential builds this year. Granted York has many proposals on the books compared to Ayerswood phase 2 of their Clarence and King project.


Will be interesting to watch this year if any new builds are started. My sense is we likely won't see much in the way of new builds breaking ground.

[jammer139]

The pit for this 17s proposal by York is now a large and deep pond. Water must be 4 feet deep now. Shame they actually had poured some of the concrete footings before they shutdown the project.

[jammer139]

I guess someone noticed and York brought in a diesel pump and hoses to drain the lake growing in the pit. Not sure this means they intend to restart construction or the city ordered them to drain the lake.


My guess the city ordered it as I don't think York is eager to start any new residential towers in 2023.

[CanadianTalk]

Interestingly enough, when I put the address of this development in the city's permit registry, the most recent item in the registry is an order issued on June 17, 2022 with the following description. Not sure what happened after that. Based on the posts in this thread, it looks like construction stopped about a month after that date.

"Building/ Plumbing - Multi Dwelling Units >4 - Order to Comply - Construction of a 17 storey apartment building has commenced without the issuance of a building permit as per the Ontario Building Code Act Clause 8(1) No person shall construct or demolish a building or cause a building to be constructed or demolished unless a permit has been issued therefor by the chief building official."

[jammer139]

That would be very odd indeed considering EllisDon was the contractor. They are far too experienced to make a mistake like that. When worked stopped last summer they took down their signage from the construction fencing pretty fast. One might speculate that the York Developments - EllisDon relationship has soured going forward. Given they are still working on York's King St 31s tower that might be that last project they work on together.

[jammer139]

They had a vacuum truck on site in addition to the diesel pump. Suspect they were power washing the concrete footings that had already been poured last summer to clean the mud off after the lake has been drained.

[jammer139]

Mobile crane just finished setting up two tower cranes for this 17s building. The shorter crane on the west end and the tall crane is on the east side near Wonderland Rd. Will be interesting to see who York has contracted as the general contractor for this build.

[jammer139]

Have started forming for the L2 level elevator shaft walls. Still have not started forming the footings in the west end of pit and it is still flooded a couple of feet deep. They will need to take advantage of any dry stretches of weather and pump out the water and get the footings formed and poured so they can pour a raft slab.

[jammer139]

Nothing much in the way of progress on the site. They had pumped out the water on the west side of pit but likely after today's rains it is a pond again. Still no signs indicating who the general contractor is going to be for York on this project.

[jammer139]

Excavator and dump trucks have been busy digging out the north wing pit for this L shaped building. Looks like there will only be one underground level of parking when they finally finish forming and pouring the foundation footings and L1 level walls. Progress on L1 walls on the SE corner of the pit has been very slow as they don't appear to have many workers onsite.

[jammer139]

Signage now up on fencing for a new concrete forming company just created this year called Blackwall Forming. Based out of Dorchester.



https://www.blackwallforming.com/


Looks like York has decided to go with this new concrete forming company for this project.


Forming for the foundation footings still ongoing for the west wing and they have now got some of the L1 walls poured in the SE corner of the pit.

[jammer139]

Pumps running full time to drain the water in the west end of the pit due to the heavy weekend rains. They have been setting up forming for the ground floor slab on the north wing end of the pit. They no doubt will be very happy to finally finish all the L1 walls and footings and pour the ground floor slab so they can waterproof the walls and install weeping tile and backfill the L1 walls to keep the water from collecting in the foundation of this building. I suspect this property has alot of clay which results in all this water collecting. Sump pump system will no doubt be working overtime for this building once built. They might need to invest in backup power and redundant sump pumps to avoid L1 level flooding.

[inimrepus]

I feel like they have spent all year just pumping water out of this hole without making any real progress on the build.

[jammer139]

They have been making progress with pouring some more of the L1 foundation walls along the south side of pit and expanding the pit towards the NW corner. Foundation footings on the west side have also been poured as they have also expanded the pit along that side of the property line. Forming for the ground floor slab on the NE corner is also progressing.

[jammer139]

They have now poured the NE corner ground floor slab. Forming for ground floor slab progressing towards the south. Prepping for the L1 floor slab pour now in the SE corner of pit. They have now poured all the south side L1 walls and some of the SW side walls as well. Excavation of the NW corner of the pit is well underway now with two excavators and a parade of dump trucks working to dig that corner out.

[jammer139]

They have now poured the L1 floor slab all the way to the SE corner of the footprint. Forming for the ground floor slab is continuing towards the south corner. Alot of work still happening in the SW corner for the foundation footings.