City
The Bohemian Embassy Revisited
If you visit any of the bars and galleries along West Queen West, you've seen the construction site on the south side of the street for The Bohemian Embassy Flats and Lofts. This project, along with the Drake, has come to symbolize the effects of gentrification - both bad and good - on the neighbourhood. For instance, according to Active 18, the community group that fought to shape its development, the Bohemian Embassy is part of a "badly designed, overbuilt precinct." (PDF) The homeowners that bought into the project likely disagree.
Although the stretch between Gladstone and Dovercourt on Queen had been seeing growth in cultural activity since the beginning of the 2000s, it wasn't until 2004 and the opening of the Drake that the area really began to boom. Local developers noticed: in 2005, Baywood Homes launched the Bohemian Embassy. The condominium project includes a 9-storey building fronting Queen and a 19-storey tower behind it that overlooks the railroad tracks.
Almost immediately after launching, it was contentious. For Don Cullen, the project seemed to be misusing the name of the 1960s literary reading series that he started, and that featured Atwood, Purdy and Ondaatije. For others, its name and its marketing materials were just cringe-worthy: "a condominium so stylish and cool, it promises to redefine the way this city's hipsters live." At nearby Fly Gallery, they even had a parody called the Bohemian Embarrassment.
As the project developed, more problems arose. After the Bohemian Embassy sent its planning documents to the city for approval, the owners of the nearby 48 Abell Street and 150 Sudbury Street decided to apply for approval to build condo towers of their own. With the face of West Queen West set to change drastically, several groups such as Active 18 and Artscape waded in to help moderate the developments and direct them in a more community-oriented direction.
The fight over West Queen West took on larger political significance, and at one point, even Mayor David Miller got involved. In the end, the community groups and the developers managed to hash out a deal that was at least partially acceptable to all of the groups involved.
After the legal issues had been settled, the planning approvals were in place and the project had sold out 70% of its units, excavation began in 2008. But even then, problems still dogged the project. Construction stopped on the site in early 2009, possibly due to the recession's effect on Baywood Homes' ability to finance the project. In August 2009, the site was sold to the current developer, Pemberton Group.
Since then, construction has resumed, and the site is generally busy during the day. Construction of at least part of the building is supposed to be completed later this year, but the whole project will likely take until 2011 to be finished. However, it will take several years before the final word can be said on whether the Bohemian Embassy helped to kill or enhance the community it fought so hard to join.
Writing and photos by Matthew Harris
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Secondly, this condo development will bring more money to the area, it may loose some of its charm, but i believe that people moving into that area do not wan't to change the vibe of that area, they chose to live there because of it.
I won't be living here by the time the Embassy is done--heading over to Parkdale, or College and Dovercourt area, or at least the north side of Dundas.
There has been a lot of "developments" to this particular stretch of West Queen West that have flown under the radar: backroom deals, building plans changing without approval, phased developments put on hold. The list is long.
Having lived at Abell for a few years now (and that still makes me a relative newbie in the building), I still think it's a shame that it's nearing the end of it's days. A few years away, mind you, but still a shame. You will be VERY hard pressed to find such a unique mixture of living spaces of such size and varied tastes, in a building that is filled with open, friendly and fun people. I have gotten wood cut from an international prop master in the basement, to bbq's with germans on the rooftop patio, to housewarming parties for new russian neighbours, all in one day here!
I completely agree with John, this neighbourhood is being increasingly taking over by "tourists": idiots who come down to the Drake/Gladstone/Beaconsfield and get ripped, fight, barf outside my window, then head back to the 905. I for one will not be sticking around this neighbourhood once Abell comes down.
Everywhere around here there are only two things being build: condos and bars.
Mark my words: in 5 years time, West Queen West will be the new, much complained about Club District currently residing on King Street. And we'll all be scratching our heads wondering what to do about it, when we let the chance slip away when we could have.
I guess like the guy above said, the next (current?) spot is in and around the junction or parkdale. I'm curious what happens to the communities already in that area when it becomes an arts destination. Do they become less diverse? Are the poor displaced? Do the new demographic create the same resentment that happens when a new group moves into Queen West? I guess we'll see with the junction in the coming years.
And one of the beautiful things about a big city is that they can find each other in sufficient numbers to form some kind of community. (And unpleasant as you might find them, a great number of innovation--technological, artistic, ideological--has come from historical figures you would probably deride as "freaks". So they're not only people, but important people.)
http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=joe%20shuster%20way&;oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl
if there's any consolation, maybe the fiscal snafu will force the city to think hard about their approval process and make some positive changes. enough with this car driven crap, build real comunities already.
Also, it's not just gentrification, but over-gentrification. Some cleaning up and increased wealth is good. When everything seems to be on a Queen West/Yorkville trajectory, that's a problem.
Also, "Bohemian Embassy"? Really? Anyone who buys a condo for its name alone should be shot. Is there anything less "Bohemian" than living in a filing cabinet?
These buildings are notorious and residents will be bigger pariahs than fur wearers.
Just because people with enough money to buy and not rent move in doesn't mean the whole area is going to impload!
In the last 2 months my friend who lives there has had a murder in his building (In which a drug deal gone bad ended in a man having his head blown off in the loby) and a decomposing corpse in the apt beside him.
I also managed to witness a man assulted with a hammer on Queen not far from lansdowne..
GEE I REALLY HOPE ANOTHER DRAKE DOESN'T MOVE IN THE AREA WITH ITS HIGH END CUSTOMERS...
I REALLY HOPE THE DRUG DEALING LOW LIVES STICK AROUND THE AREA TO PROTECT TEH RENT INCREASES!!
Get a life and a career!
According to Toronto Police, there have been no murders in Parkdale since last October (maybe the last one is what you're describing though; it was a gunshot murder in an apartment building hallway near Lakeshore and Jameson.)
That was the only Parkdale murder of 2009. The Annex had three murders that year. And Yorkville had one--by gunshot. Still think Parkdale is so scary?
I do however think that it is a dump, loaded with roach infested shitholes and crackheads.
Can someone explain to me this 'ideal' place people want to live in? How would more people living around an area make it worse? Is it just cause the building doesn't look nice, it will wreck the view people have from their houses? People obviously want to live in West Queen West, but buying one of the houses in the area is completely unaffordable, how else are people supposed to move into the area?
This seems to me to be a bit of snobbery on the part who live in this neighbourhood. Somehow having more people move there will wreck the neighbourhood, so they have to move somewhere else, forever chasing some kind of nostalgic ideal. It's hard to get my head around. Maybe I just don't get it.
Also, regarding parkdale, it's just as full of those drunken 905ers some of you seem to hate so much. You're going to have to find another neighbourhood.
Nick is right that more density is good. But Marc is right that Toronto relies on condos like a crutch. Why can't developers be less obsessed with mega-projects and practice more subtle intensificatin--tear down some of the many ugly cinderblock houses from the 50s and 60s that litter the downtown and put up some four to six storey apartments and rowhouses?
Probably will never happen since Toronto has a pathological fear of physical change in its "mature" neighbourhoods, but really, the city is still fairly young, and managed intensification is a great opportunity that we won't even think about. Victorian rowhouses are great, but suburban-style, post-WW2 detached houses in the downtown core? We can do better than that.
So Im note sure where Jeff came up with the number 14. Jeff you might be confusing it with a different project in the area.
Are condos the solution to everything? No, but I'll take a condo anyday over detached plazas/housing/parking.
By the way, rich people don't move into condos (except for perhaps the penthouse), they move into houses in Rosedale.
How is judging and rejecting people before you even talk to them...and claiming an entire building of people are cut from the same cloth...not totally reverse snootiness and discrimination?
And not to be a total a capitalist but has it occurred to the, say visual artists, you suggest should flee the area…that new people moving into the area with new lofts and flats that may want to buy the creations they sell? Areas with a mixed bag of people brings opportunities too. Or is complaining easier…