Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 819

The Standard recently opened up its first international outpost in London. It's a 266-room hotel housed in a 1974 Brutalist office building overlooking King's Cross. London-based Orms (architect) was the lead consultant and they did an incredible job both preserving and modernizing the existing building.

All of the existing windows were replaced, but otherwise the Brutalist exterior remains more or less intact.

A tasteful 3 storey addition was placed on top of it, which required threading new steel columns through the existing waffle slabs . There's a 1st floor transfer slab with concrete columns below it in order to pickup these new loads.

A dedicated (and red) exterior shuttle elevator was also added to the north elevation of the building. This takes people up to the rooftop, which is a signature feature of all Standard Hotels.

Brutalist architecture is experiencing a bit of renaissance right now. We are seeing people lament the demise of our concrete blocks from the 60s and 70s. Perhaps it's because it's a style/movement that is finally old enough for people to appreciate it. That's often how these things work.

The Standard in London is a perfect example of how this history might be both respected and repositioned.

Images via Orms

I can think of at least a dozen buildings in Toronto that use some form of a parking stacker system. And I am seeing firsthand how they are becoming more popular and more commonplace as a result of space constraints, rising costs, and a bunch of other factors. Below is an example of a system that allows you to (almost) triple the number of cars that can be accommodated on a given footprint. However, it does require higher floor-to-ceiling heights and a pit. If you can't see the video below, click here .

https://youtu.be/lDbMnNMdFFg

In June of this year, Sidewalk Labs released its draft Master Innovation and Development Plan (MIDP) for Toronto's eastern waterfront. I wrote about it here . It was a draft document that was subject to further discussion and refinement, with October 31, 2019 being an important deadline for a lot of that to happen.

Some of the critical issues included project scope (just Quayside?), the possibility of a Waterfront LRT (needs to happen), data governance (who owns and manages the data that will be generated by this new smart city?) and, of course, land value. How much is Quayside worth?

A number of these key issues have now been "realigned," including the land value piece. Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalks Labs have agreed on a fair market value of $590 million (before accounting for any investments that will be required in order to achieve Waterfront Toronto's goals).

For a summary of the critical issues and what has been agreed to, click here . With these items now firmed up, Waterfront Toronto's board voted unanimously to proceed to the next phase. The next critical date is March 31, 2020, which is when the project will seek final approval. Mark your calendars.