Condo Critic: Broadway Ave. represents city's changing face
April 16, 2010
Christopher Hume
The changing face of Broadway Ave. is the changing face of Toronto. Despite the name, this Broadway is a narrow two-lane road running east from Yonge St. north of Eglinton Ave. On both sides the results of many decades of thinking and building can be seen. From old two-storey houses to the set-back slabs of the ’70s and newer sidewalk-hugging highrise towers, the story is one of a city that never stops growing and adding density. On a street such as this, the increased pressure has been accommodated successfully, if not brilliantly. Here is the usual Toronto mishmash. Though congestion has increased, especially at the corner of Redpath and Broadway where traffic lights are needed, the feel is generally quiet and residential. Of course, the neighbours here have easy access to public transit and all the amenities of the urban village.
On the other hand, a price has been paid; take of look at what’s happening at North Toronto Collegiate, which occupies the block between Broadway and Roehampton to the south; its playing field is now the site of tall condo complex that looms mightily over the old school. It, too, will disappear eventually.
Further south, at Yonge and Eglinton, the last bit of open space will soon be taken over by an addition to an already dreary mall. North Torontonians aren’t happy about it, but perhaps it should come as no surprise that the forces of commercialism would win out. Then again, all these new residents will have to shop somewhere.
88 Broadway Ave.
This unimaginative complex certainly does its job, but doesn’t aspire to much more. Standing 20 storeys high, it doesn’t count as tall by the standards of a neighbourhood such as this, which grows more vertical with each passing decade. The three-floor podium on which the tower sits extends north up Redpath and west along Broadway. Clad in concrete and glass, it has none of the transparency so characteristic of contemporary residential architecture. This offer a heavier, more opaque, exterior where the space is divided into balconies, most of them recessed,
Unlike the large slab to the west, set well back from the street, 88 Broadway comes right out to the property line in good urbanist fashion. It doesn’t make much of that connection, however, and the main entrance looks like an afterthought. No question this is what planners like to call a “fabric building,” one used to meet a need and fill a gap. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but a bit more attention at street level would have allowed the complex to bring a bit more to the area, and its own image.
Grade: B-
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