Building Roundup

The Pan Am Summer Games in 2015 are driving the schedule for rebuilding the Strachan Avenue bridge over the Georgetown rail corridor and for the lowering of tracks that is part of upgrading GO Transit’s service between Union Station, Pearson Airport, and beyond. In Fall 2009, approval was given to an environmental assessment of these improvements. Enabling work—relocating utilities, rail signals, and tracks—will commence in November 2010. However, the main part of construction will begin in Summer 2011, and continue to completion in Fall 2014. Throughout almost this whole period detours will keep traffic moving on Strachan. Also, to help people deal with the dislocation, GO Transit has opened an office where they can ask questions and get more information (Carmen Nisbet, 416-869-3600, ext. 5165).

AECOM, a global engineering firm, has been hired by the City to manage the design and construction of the Fort York Pedestrian and Cycling bridge across the Hamilton and Georgetown rail corridors east of Strachan Avenue. A progressively-engineered S-shaped structure will link the Garrison Common west of Fort York with Stanley Park on the south side of Wellington Street. Currently the project is in the design phase, with Montgomery Sisam Architects of Toronto having been retained by AECOM for some of this work. Construction tenders will be called in October 2010, and a contract awarded before the end of the year. Building the bridge will begin early in 2011 and is expected to be completed in May 2012.

Rebuilding the Bathurst Street bridge is the third bridging project in Fort York’s vicinity. In 2008 an environmental assessment was approved for the southern, viaduct section between Fort York Boulevard and Front Street, allowing preliminary plans to be put before the City’s Design Review Panel. Unimpressed, the panel sent the design back for reworking. The TTC took that opportunity to ask for a change in the project scope to provide a dedicated transit right-of-way across the early 20th century steel-truss bridge spanning the rail corridor, avoiding the need for streetcars to share the road with cars, as at present. Options for widening or twinning the heritage truss have been studied, but nothing is approved yet. The City would need approval from the railways for any new structure. Although the heritage truss is grandfathered at its present height above the tracks, a new bridge may have to be higher to give enough clearance for the future electrification of the rail lines. Having to raise the heritage bridge would add to the costs and complexity of the project. Optimistically, construction on this project could start in 2015, after the Strachan bridge is rebuilt and the Pan Am Games are over.

Currently the land reserved for June Callwood Park between Fleet Street and Fort York Boulevard is being cleared of interim uses so preparatory work on the park can occur this Fall. The flanking streets—Bastion on the east and Gzowski on the west—have been or are being built by the developers of the adjacent lands, Plazacorp and H&R, and will be turned over to the City shortly. However, it will be early 2011 before major work on the park begins. Welcome and generous help with the landscaping costs is coming from the Toronto Parks & Trees Foundation, the Francine & Robert Barrett Fund at the Toronto Community Foundation, and the Garden Club of Toronto. The park is scheduled to open in 2012.

Developments are underway on three of the four corners at Bathurst Street and Fort York Boulevard. At the northeast corner on City-owned Blocks 32 and 36 (Railway Lands West neighbourhood), Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) has joined with Context Development to build 891 suites for the condo, rental, and social housing markets plus some commercial units. On Block 32 TCHC is planning a 41-storey tower joined to a lower podium on three sides. On Block 36 next door, Context’s Libary District has a 29-storey tower in the southeast corner flanked by two lower structures set at 90-degrees to one another. The building stretching along Fort York Boulevard will house at the Bathurst corner the 100th branch in Toronto’s public library system, which will appear as a free-standing building. Many units in Block 36 will overlook a new park extending under the Bathurst bridge and linking Fort York to the so-called Northern Linear Park, a grassy strip running along the edge of the rail corridor between Bathurst and Spadina.

At the southeast corner of Bathurst and Fort York Boulevard in Blocks 33 and 37 (Railway Lands West), Concord Adex will be bringing its experience gained from developing several condo towers near Spadina to create an as yet unnamed complex of residential and commercial buildings. In early June, as a first step to refining its plans, the developer held a design workshop involving architects, city planners, fort staff, representatives from Councillor Vaughan’s office, and the Friends of Fort York.

At the southwest corner of Bathurst and Fort York Boulevard, overlooking the fort, Vancouver’s Onni Group is marketing the first phase of its Garrison at the Yards development on the north half of Block 6 (Fort York neighbourhood). It will consist of 207 condominium units in an 11-storey tower. Eventually three more towers of a greater height will be built on Onni’s lands south of the Gardiner Expressway.

Not to be forgotten in this roundup is The Fort York Visitor Centre reported elsewhere on pages 5 and 6 of this issue.

Who Goes There? Is That a Joke?

One of our Friends, Chris Raible of Creemore, has sent the following item from an issue of The Colonial Advocate [York, U.C.], 22 March 1827:

“Young Mr. Maitland, son to his excellency [Lt. Governor Sir Peregrine Maitland], disguised himself one night last week in ragged and uncouth apparel, for the purpose it is said of ascertaining whether the guard at the south side of the garrison was on duty. He climbed up the bank, the sentinel was on duty, and hearing some one approaching ran for his musket, presented his bayonet to the stranger, who cried for mercy, and told his name. The sentinel however did not permit him to enter the garrison by the ascent. He had to go round to the gate and give the regular countersign previous to his admission.”

‘Young Mr. Maitland’ was Capt. Peregrine Maitland, the lieutenant governor’s oldest son whose mother died when he was an infant. In 1815 Lady Sarah Lennox became his stepmother when his father remarried. Taking leave on half-pay in 1826-27 from the 74th (Highland) Regiment of Foot, Capt. Maitland joined his father’s staff at Government House, York. Notwithstanding what the newspaper said, his probing of Fort York’s security may have been inspired as much by boredom as by an interest in gathering military intelligence.