David Mirvish and Frank Gehry to transform King St. strip into culture and condo complex

David Mirvish and Frank Gehry are boldly planning a mega culture-and-condo complex that brings down the curtain on the Princess of Wales theatre and will transform Toronto’s Entertainment District, the Star has learned.

The complex will give Toronto two new museums, including one that showcases the sensational abstract art collection of David and Audrey Mirvish. The other museum will feature the collection of OCAD University, along with studios, seminar rooms and a hall for public lectures.

Mirvish, the king of Toronto theatre, and Gehry, the world’s most celebrated living architect, are collaborating on the visionary project. They’re working on a canvas that stretches along the north side of King Street West all the way from the corner of John, crosses Ed Mirvish Way and extends eastward for another half block to the edge of the venerable Royal Alexandra Theatre, purchased 50 years ago by David’s father, the late “Honest” Ed Mirvish.

That theatre, built in 1907, will survive, but the Princess of Wales, which opened in 1993, will be scrapped to make way for the new centre.

Call it the end of one era and the dawn of a new one.

Offering multi-level podiums with terraces and retail shops at its base, the complex will reach skyward with three dancing condo towers, over 80 stories tall — each one different — designed by Gehry in a way that comments on the fabric of the city where he grew up.

The development, expected to take four to seven years to construct, will sweep across six Mirvish-owned properties, some of which were once homes to restaurants opened by Ed Mirvish, David’s father. Those properties will all come down to make way for the new development. And while some of the buildings are designated, it is understood they are not covered with easement agreements that would prevent them being torn down.

“We see an opportunity to join our history with Frank Gehry’s history and continue our ongoing commitment to the neighbourhood,” said Mirvish, who owns two other Toronto theatres (the Ed Mirvish Theatre and the Panasonic) besides the two on King Street.

He declined to put a price tag on the complex, but it’s almost sure to be in the billion-dollar range.

The Mirvish museum (60,000 square feet) will offer free public access and house a selection of Mirvish’s more than 1,100 abstract paintings (by artists including Frank Stella, Jack Bush, Jules Olitski, David Smith and Helen Frankenthaler). For years most of these paintings — acquired in his first career as an art dealer from 1963 to 1978 — have been in storage, and are frequently lent to museums in Europe and the U.S. for special exhibitions. The Mirvish collection will be presented to the public with free admission except for special exhibitions.

Gehry, 83, is flying to Toronto from Los Angeles, where he has lived and worked for most of his career, for Monday’s official announcement of the project. Appropriately, that event will take place at the only other Gehry building in Canada — the Art Gallery of Ontario, which reopened four years ago after he reinvented it.

“We’re at a very early stage of development,” said Mirvish.

Step one will be an application to the city of Toronto for zoning approval, to be submitted immediately.

The west section of the complex has a podium with the Mirvish collection in the atrium and terraces overlooking King Street and David Pecaut Square. Soaring above the podium are two residential towers, each with a distinctive identity, rising 80 stories above the street.

“Doing a project on this scale is like docking the Queen Mary,” Gehry quipped in an interview with the Star. “It’s always precarious, because so much depends on the marketplace and world events and construction prices. It’s because of the art component that we like the project so much. I am ecstatic to be doing something near my old Toronto neighbourhood, and also to be collaborating with David. Whatever we do we want to be very special”

According to Mirvish, the project would deliver enormous benefits to the city in terms of jobs and taxes. Peter Kofman of Projectcore Inc. will take charge of the project’s development, management and construction.

As for the demise of the Princess of Wales, Mirvish said while it is a great building, the new centre will be even greater with two museums and other features. “The podium will become a major cultural destination,” he said. “The towers will not be just condos but a symbol of the city by our greatest architect.”

Frank Stella who painted the decorative theme for the Princess of Wales Theatre is working with Gehry to create new work for the public areas of the new complex, integrating art and architecture.

And most of Stella’s work from the doomed theatre will be saved and stored for possible future use. Stella will be in Toronto Monday to take part in the official announcement.

“This area was transformed 50 years ago after my father purchased the Royal Alexandra Theatre,” Mirvish said. Then that theatre was the only cultural building in the area. Today it has been joined by Roy Thomson Hall, TIFF Bell Lightbox and David Pecaut Square.

“This project will continue the theatre’s future and transform the neighbourhood again for the next 50 years,” he said. “I am proud that we can continue this legacy.”

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/theatre/article/1264364–david-mirvish-and-frank-gehry-to-transform-king-st-strip-into-culture-and-condo-complex

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Hume: Regent Park brings new life to Toronto

As Toronto’s most successful city-building effort in more than 30 years, the Regent Park remake is one of few projects in which we can all take pride.

Not since the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood of the 1970s has local officialdom managed to pull off such a bold and innovative scheme. When done, it will have improved the lives of thousands of low-income tenants and made the city a better place.

So the attack on Regent Park launched this week by Mayor Rob Ford’s media doppelgangers at the Toronto Sun, as lamentable as it was, comes as no surprise. In the politics of resentment, no success must be allowed to go unpunished, especially one that involves public agencies and the poor.

Still, the bitterness of the attack was disturbing. Where does this sort of anger come from? And what’s it really about? Facts weren’t just twisted beyond recognition, but organized to bolster a foregone conclusion.

The starting point was the usual rightist cant about public agencies such as the Toronto Community Housing Corp. The TCHC was formed when senior governments dumped their social housing stock on the city a decade ago. It’s one of the largest landlords in North America. Among its holdings is Regent Park, a failed post-war social housing experiment that had outlived its theory.

The solution, simple but brilliant, was formulated by former TCHC CEO Derek Ballantyne. He wanted to rebuild the neighbourhood on a mixed-income, mixed-use basis. The idea was to get rid of the physical barriers, build amenities, create street animation and add middle-class housing. The intention was to make Regent Park look and act like any other neighbourhood in Toronto, not a ghetto.

Getting residents to agree to move out, even temporarily, was no mean feat. Neither was finding a developer, Daniels Corp. The TCHC managed both.

From the start, the hard part was to attract those middle-class buyers who would ultimately pay for the improvements. After all, would anyone who had a choice opt to live at Dundas and Parliament, one of the city’s most depressed corners?

Those early buyers, including TCHC and Daniels employees, deserve credit for putting their money where their mouths are. As the former city integrity commissioner noted, the caveat was that they played, and paid, by the same rules as the public. This they did.

So did Councillor Pam McConnell, who represents Regent Park and bought a unit. According to the Sun, this qualifies as conflict of interest. Quite the opposite; McConnell deserves credit for paying full market value for the pleasure of being an urban guinea pig down with the drug dealers.

In the absence of anything real, participating media have now taken to tut-tutting about the appearance of wrongdoing. Their sanctimony is laughable. Have any of them looked in a mirror lately?

The more serious issue concerns the integration of new arrivals with Regent Park returnees. Given that the rebuilding will take a further 10 to 15 years, much remains undone. Some former residents won’t return; others already have and more will. Those we have spoken to are thrilled with their new family-friendly apartments, some of which have as many as three bedrooms — hard to find in Toronto.

But none of this matters to those who made up their minds long ago that progress is little more than a socialist conspiracy. So little progress. So few socialists. No wonder they’re so angry.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1154047–hume-regent-park-brings-new-life-to-toronto

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Paintbox brings values and fine food to Regent Park

There’s something remarkable going on inside the Regent Park Arts & Cultural Centre at chef/owner Chris Klugman’s new Paintbox Bistro and catering company.

The first visual clue is the bank of windows on Dundas St. E. that gives passersby an open view of the kitchen — a rarity in Toronto, where virtually all kitchens are windowless and hidden from customers. A takeout window acts as a direct connection between the people on the street and the people creating food.

Then there’s the fact that Paintbox is a for-profit social enterprise, meaning it’s a business (not a charity or non-profit) with a mandate to train a new breed of restaurant staff.

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Recipe: Smorrebrod With Cucumber, Fennel, Apple & Mint

In Klugman’s new world order, there’s no division between the front of house (servers) and back of house (cooks). Everyone will be trained to work all jobs to better their chances for restaurant careers. Wages will be almost equal at $11 an hour, $12 for those who’ve done a semester at hospitality school. Tips will be divided equally among staff — and management and owners won’t get a cut.

“This is a different pay model than the rest of the industry, where cooks can’t feed their families and bartenders drive Mercedes,” explains Klugman, who has worked in the industry for 32 years. “And usually the business steals a lot of tips. It’s not atypical for 5 per cent to go to the house. It’s a nice windfall for them, but I think it’s an awful practice and I’m not going there.”

Paintbox is actually a collection of food-related businesses.

There’s a licensed bistro in the northwest corner of the arts centre. It hopes to launch this Saturday, serving dishes like braised veal cheeks in caramelized onion broth, and roasted carrots and sunchokes with burnt maple vinaigrette.

The bistro’s kitchen will also provide food for the takeout window, which has a menu-in-progress that might include fries with mayo, buttermilk chicken bites, bacon-cheddar burger bombs, milkshakes and coffee.

At the northeast end of the arts centre, Paintbox will run a coffee bar with multicultural offerings, like Bengali curry Panini, and lower prices. It’s slated to open later this fall.

Behind the scenes, there will be a food incubator that will nurture food-minded entrepreneurs, and a catering operation that is already busy with jobs.

The goal of the entire enterprise, says Klugman, is to create food that’s “important enough that it brings the whole city to Regent Park.”

Paintbox is housed in the arts centre, on Dundas St. E. between Sumach and Sackville, part of an ambitious move to revitalize one of Canada’s most well-known social-housing complexes and turn it into a mixed-income neighbourhood. It’s attached to the 26-storey Paintbox Condominiums, built by Daniels Corp.

“I stole the name from the condos next door while brainstorming with (Daniels’ president) Mitchell Cohen,” says Klugman. “What I love about it is that it connotes fun and playfulness and creativity. We’re not like other restaurants. We’re not like other catering companies. We are about diversity and we have many colours.”

Those colours were on full display Monday when Paintbox catered the media launch for Culture Days. A seven-member kitchen team, led by chef de cuisine Matthew Cowan, crafted two kinds of mini banh mi (pulled pork with tamarind-cider barbecue sauce, and chili-garlic tofu), three kinds of smorrebrod (open-faced Nordic-style tea sandwiches), falafel balls wrapped around cauliflower, and mini apricot and almond tartlets.

Little bites of polenta tapenade and Tuscan caprese were served from checkerboards. A non-alcoholic signature cocktail, designed for Culture Days by Paintbox manager Morgan Ashley Davidoff, featured orange juice, her own brand of ginger syrup, and soda.

“We do definitely want to make a name by being a little bit out there,” admits Cowan. “We want to push. We want to do more modern cooking.”

But what the “Paintboxers” want most is to play a key role in changing the area’s image.

“I’m delighted to see a neighbourhood that’s so vibrant and turning around,” says Paintbox trainee Pamela Oakley. “It doesn’t feel so marginalized.”

Adds fellow trainee Julie-Anna Gavadza: “The goal is really to show everybody the whole new face of Regent Park. Hopefully people won’t be so afraid to come to Regent any more.”

jbain@thestar.ca

www.twitter.com/thesaucylady

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Hume Paintbox condo brings colour to Regent Park

STAR COLUMNIST

s the remake of Regent Park unfolds, one thing is already clear; Dundas St. east of Parliament will never be the same. Though much remains undone, the spectacular new aquatic centre appears set to become a destination, as does the Regent Park Arts and Cultural Centre. Then, of course, there’s the residential component, which will bring new height and density to the neighbourhood.

Since the early 1950s, this stretch of Dundas has been lined with the box-like housing that comprised the original Regent Park. Though the project won awards and was widely admired, it turned out that a number of the most basic assumptions were flawed. For instance, cutting a community off from the street grid and failing to distinguish between public and private property turned out to be fundamentally flawed. It made Regent Park a city-within-a-city, but for all the wrong reasons. Like some high-density subdivision, the neighbourhood was isolated and always felt disconnected from things. The shared spaces of the commons were better suited to drug dealing than children playing. Despite the good intentions, Regent Park was an enclave on the way to becoming a ghetto.

The new Regent Park aims to change all that. The strategy, though simple, has been successful. Mixing full-market housing with (apparently identical) subsidized units, the new housing complex offers more amenities (swimming and culture), better architecture and an enhanced public realm.

 

 

http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/newsfeatures/article/1239557–hume-paintbox-condo-brings-colour-to-regent-park

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