Bloor Street through the Annex is one of Toronto's liveliest retail and restaurant strips. It has always felt odd however that Bathurst Street should die off so quickly as you moved south from Bloor, but the cause of that has not been difficult to spot: the east side of Bathurst has been underutilized for years. Most recently a parking lot and a disused school, the lack of anything attractive to people here made this portion of Bathurst merely a strip of land to travel over to get to more interesting places.

Past: The B.streets presentation centre was the first sign things would change, image from Google Street View

Lindvest Properties understood the opportunity here when they saw it, and lucky for Baturst Street—and us—they took it. Lindvest engaged Hariri Pontarini Architects to design an 'Avenues' style building to transform the block, and the resulting nine-storey proposal, B.streets Condos, got a lot of attention on a website (this one!) normally obsessed with taller and bigger. B.streets grabbed that attention for a syncopated, stepped-back design which recedes assymetrically as it rises: B.streets may hug Bathurst's east side, but notches and nubs provide interest where an unarticulated wall would have produced a monolith.

Present: B.streets Condos has hit its first step-back, image by Craig White

B.streets did well in sales of course, has won a slew of design awards, and is now at the first step-back. By this time next year the building should look much like the rendering below, and Bathurst just south of Bloor should be more than just a strip of land to travel over. Residents and shoppers will bring new life to this block, and another neighbourhood will be improved by Toronto's ongoing intensfication.

Future: by this time next year B.streets should look much like this rendering, image courtesy of Lindvest Properties

Want to know more about B.streets Condos? Earlier articles linked below will tell you lots more, while the UrbanToronto dataBase entry includes quite a number of renderings and a link to the official website. Choose one of the associated Forum threads to get in on the conversation, or you may leave a comment in the space provided on this page.