Yonge and Bloor condo breaks ground

[attach]4607[/attach]Ground has finally been broken on the 70-storey condo building at 1 Bloor St. East allowing construction to begin in earnest.

Praising the designers, Ward 27 Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, a former real estate agent, said the building is the most fitting for the area.

“I think we’re going to see here today a building that (will) exemplify … excellence in architectural design, standard and science,” she said.

Architect David Pontarini said he drew his inspiration from art and sculpture. He wanted to avoid the typical functionalist design and instead give the building more fluidity. He said he was eager to give the building a sense of movement. The entire exterior of the building will express this movement through its wave-like balconies.

The same theme extends into the interior of the building. After studying organic forms, interior designer Anna Simone, founding partner of Cecconi Simone Inc., actively integrated nature into the rooms of the building.

“We’ve always been very architectural, very linear, whereas this is more organic in its form,” she said. “It’s really about making people feel comfortable.”

Developer David Gerofsky, president of Great Gulf Group of Companies defended the location against the concern that the flood of new condo residents could potentially wreak havoc on the roads.

He said intensification in areas where the infrastructure is already available, “does not burden the city and the taxpayers with having to build more subways and more roads.

“Being on two subway lines we think most of the residents won’t bother with cars at all and rely on the subway system,” Gerofsky said.

He also said the mixed-use area will discourage condo residents from driving their cars to go shopping since there’ll be plenty of retail space on the lower floors of the building.