In mid-2010 then Mayor of Toronto David Miller announced the winning entry in the competition to design a new North building for the St. Lawrence Market, one put forward by the team of locally-based Adamson Associates Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners of the UK. The design is a six-storey structure that "allows market shoppers to view life and activities on Front Street, Jarvis Street and on Market Lane Park from within its glass atrium, effectively creating an open indoor market that resembles a fresh, outdoor setting. Shoppers will also be able to see the South Market from inside the building and appreciate a dramatic view of St. Lawrence Hall to the north, creating a strong visual connection with all three buildings of the complex", according to the City's webpage for the project. It's certainly a design that caught the imagination of UrbanToronto readers, as it led our polls regarding which of the five finalists we would like to see built.

St. Lawrence Market North Exterior, by Rogers Stirk Harbour with Adamson Associates

Since that time we have been waiting mostly patiently, as we Torontonians are mostly wont to do, for the current North Market to be boarded up and for the demolition to begin: let's get this underway already! Unfortunately, the only new information to report at this time is not much more than the following reassurance that there is movement behind the scenes to bring this buidling about: the proposed Capital Budget for Toronto, currently being debated, expalins that work on the market has been postponed from a 2012 start until 2013. "St.Lawrence Market North – The project is currently in consultant/design contract negotiation stage. The main consulting/design contract is currently being finalized, and based on preliminary updated schedules, 2011 cash flows have been deferred to future years as spending in 2011 is anticipated to be $0.500 or 3.5% of the 2011 approved cash flow of $14.254 million." and "Cash flow funding has been adjusted for the St. Lawrence Market North Redevelopment project to reflect revised construction timeline estimates. The St. Lawrence Market North redevelopment was scheduled to begin construction in 2011 with substantial completion in 2014. This has been revised to 2013 to 2016 due to delays in finalizing the design of the building."

So we must be patient a while longer. In the meantime, UrbanToronto has added the winning entry to our dataBase for your enjoyment, with several renderings and plans from the competition boards. You'll find the page linked below.

You may also be interested in reminding yourself of the other finalists from the competition. Those plans can be found in some older UrbanToronto articles, now republished and linked below as well!

If you wish to get more involved in the discussion about this project, you can always join in on the thread in our Projects & Construction forum: it is also linked below in the dataBase entry box.

Related Companies:  Adamson Associates Architects, Buttcon Limited, Engineering Link Inc, entro, Entuitive, Norris Fire Consulting Inc