I actually follow alot of the projects in Miami, and while many of the renderings depict great looking towers, the finished product is not always that great.
1 Bloor East going for 275 metres:
From the Post:
Psychics out, condos in on Bloor
Neighbourhood makes way for 80-storey tower
Peter Kuitenbrouwer, National Post
Published: Tuesday, October 30, 2007
They have given notice to the Egyptian Psychic Reader on Bloor Street, along with Felix & Norton, the newsstand and Harvey's. City Optical, after 15 years at the corner of Yonge and Bloor streets, will be gone by Jan. 31. The Naval Club, which has occupied its brick home on Hayden Street for about 70 years, is moving to Dan-forth and Coxwell avenues. On Yonge Street, the Foreign Exchange Centre, Toby's, Pop-eye's, the Falafel House, the Shoe Company, the Biryani House: everyone must go.
Bazis International, the powerful Kazakhstan-based development company, is preparing to bulldoze what amounts to an entire neighbourhood in the heart of Toronto, and replace it with One Bloor, which the company calls a "whisper-thin" 80-storey condominium tower and "boutique" hotel.
The psychic reader, who was smoking a cigarette when I walked in, just shrugged her shoulders.
Yes, that's what they call it. A few doors down, about 25 people bustled inside 33 Bloor St. E., the new sales centre for the tower, hanging pictures of floor plans and laying out a red carpet for Mayor David Miller, who was arriving in the evening.
In the middle of the chaos stood Michael Gold, president of Bazis in North America, wearing a black V-neck sweater and jeans.
He led the way to Lettuce Eatery, a soup and salad bar just a bit east. Roy Varacalli, a partner and design architect for the building, came in holding a television remote in his hand.
"One of the TVs broke," he explained. "So I went and bought a new one. I didn't want to leave the remote there --I was afraid someone would lose it."
He rested the remote on the restaurant table and, as he and Mr. Gold shared a salad wrap, they talked about their vision for what Mr. Gold calls "the most famous street corner in Canada."
"Everything is tall, everything is thin, everything is contextual," Mr. Varacalli said.
Bazis aims to break ground in a year and complete "One Bloor" at the end of 2011.
Mr. Gold, born in Leningrad, grew up in Toronto and then married into one of the richest families in Kazakstan. Bazis, he says, is now the largest builder in that former Soviet republic, and has construction projects in Thailand, Dubai, Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Caspian Sea.
Now they want to invest in Toronto.
"We believe that Toronto, compared to the world market, is undervalued," Mr. Gold says. "It is safe, it is a melting pot of different cultures. It is welcoming to us."
There is the small matter of the building's height. Bazis says it has approval from city council to build 227 metres (substantially higher than the 134 metres for the Hudson's Bay building across the street and 149 for the CIBC building, which is kitty-corner). The builders, however, want to go up 275 metres.
"This would be probably dealt with by the committee of adjustment," Mr. Gold says. "That's something we're working out with the city."
Corwin Cambray, the city planner for the building, was unavailable yesterday for comment.
Will there be a mess? Bazis promises to do most materials deliveries at night, but still will take up a lane of permanently clogged Bloor Street for three years (yikes!).
Will it all be worth it? In its official plan approved a few years ago, the city aimed for "intensification" along its mass-transit lines; this corner, the subway's busiest crossroads, is arguably the best place to intensify.
However, Bloor station is already nuts at rush hour, and there is no Central Park around; where these people will walk their dogs remains a mystery.
The developers say the city is supportive, and even pressed them to acquire the remaining piece of the half-hectare block: the Shoe Company building, which Scotiabank finally sold to Bazis recently.
"There's 11 cultural institutions within a five-minute walk," Mr. Varacalli raves, mentioning the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
No word on whether the Brass Rail strip club, which is just a one-minute walk down Yonge, is one of the other nine.
pkuitenbrouwer@nationalpost.com
© National Post 2007
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