This week's Throwback Thursday focuses in on an intensification project that has added new density to Toronto's St. Lawrence District. Shot on May 1, 2006, three three-storey structures run along the south side of Front Street just west of Church. All three are modern, but the centre and west buildings—which have flat fronts on them—are painted up to look like they are heritage structures, hoping to blend in better with the actual heritage warehouse buildings of 1872 built both to the east and west of them.
View of the south side of Front Street at Church, May 1, 2006, image by Edward Skira
Fast forward to March 31, 2016, and those three structures, demolished in 2011, have since been replaced by Concert Properties' The Berczy, a 13-storey condominium. Its design by Young + Wright / IBI Group Architects is meant to blend with its surroundings; following the cornice line of the heritage building to the west, framing its window bays with brick, and taking its red brick cues from the 1872-built structure to the east. The windows of the Rexall pharmacy now occupying the street level frontage are framed in a precast of the same colour as the heritage buildings to the west.
The Berczy, March 31, 2016, image by Jack Landau
We will return next week with another look at the changing face of Toronto!