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rfmcdonald
Way back in 2007, everyone was quite enthusiastic about the massive condo complex slated to be put up on the southeastern corner of Yonge and Bloor, as Christopher Hume noted in The Toronto Star.
It would be hard to imagine a more unlikely scenario: A developer from of all places, Kazakhstan, shows up in of all places, Toronto, and decides to build of all things, an 80-storey condo/hotel at, of all locations, the corner of Yonge and Bloor.
No, this is not a new Borat movie, it's just another day in the life of this city.
And before you start with the jokes, two things: The developer, Bazis International, already has permission to start work on the building, and second, it has committed $450 million to the project.
It will also contribute $2 million to rehabilitate Bloor St., straight from Kazakhstan to Toronto's most prestigious shopping district.
Some may be laughing, but Councillor Kyle Rae (Toronto-Centre-Rosedale) isn't one of them. He couldn't be more excited. Speaking at a press conference called yesterday by Bazis, Rae couldn't contain his enthusiasm.
"The southeast corner of Bloor and Yonge," he rightly noted, "is an eyesore and a failure."
But then, so are the other three corners. Given that this is one of the city's most important intersections, that's not good. In fact, one might wonder why it has taken so long for something to happen on the site. Situated at the crossroads of the two major subway lines, close to practically everything, Bloor and Yonge has been ripe for redevelopment for years. It's extraordinary that it has taken so long for something to happen.
Yes. Extraordinary.
With Bazis International fast approaching the 15 June deadline that will allow it to inform customers that it's cancelling construction and returning their deposits, Richard Poplak's Toronto Life article "A Whole Lot of Nothing" makes for gripping reading. Poplak's argument is that Toronto, one of the most active condo markets in North America and with some of the lowest real estate prices of any Western city, was a natural place for an up-and-coming Kazakhstani real estate firm like Bazis to set up shop. Unfortunately, debt crises hit.
Though Bazis International is based in Concord, Ontario, it’s directly linked to economic conditions in Kazakhstan. Bazis‑A, its sister company, is headquartered in the former capital city of Almaty. It has also been actively involved in the Dubai-like renaissance taking place on a stretch of the Kazakh steppe that president Nursultan Nazarbayev designated the country’s new, post-Communist capital. He called it Astana, and it’s a jaw-on-the-floor hallucinatory mind trip. Buildings rear up into the sky, glinting like costume jewellery on an ugly debutante. There are towers with gold domes, skyscrapers housing hanging gardens, a glass pyramid designed by the architect Sir Norman Foster. On a clear day, Astana looks like something dreamed up by George Lucas.
Recently, thanks to the drop in commodity prices and Kazakhstan’s loose banking regulations, the country has been walloped by the financial crisis. Its biggest bank, BTA, has been nationalized; the chairman, a one-time opposition leader, is on the run. And Bazis has not gone unscathed. Its biggest development, the three-skyscraper Emerald Towers in Astana—which was designed by Roy Varacalli and was the inspiration for the project at Yonge and Sheppard—has been halted mid-construction. The rest of Astana is scarred by open foundations, abandoned scaffolding and the stumps of towers. A place of promise is now an example of a city in collapse. It is a warning.
[. . .]
Toronto has been lucky. It has not suffered the partially built towers that litter the Astana skyline and creep ever closer to home: Chicago’s Waterview has stalled at 20-plus floors, and Vancouver has several gaping holes that will be there to greet Olympics spectators next February. Nonetheless, One Bloor East has been a lesson in pre- and post-crisis real estate development. The global embrace that defined the boom’s mega-deals—where a company originating in Kazakhstan could get American financing for a Canadian skyscraper—are now recalled with nostalgia. Until all the deals are inked—and perhaps for sometime after—the spectral 1BE teeters like a jury-rigged hut. It has yet to be built, but it is already a relic of another time.
