Recently completed building is modest — and welcome

Christopher Hume – Toronto Star

Queen Street seems to get all the attention, but it’s King Street that often deserves it.

Though not as long as the former, the latter is another shining example of how the re-urbanization of Toronto has changed the way we inhabit this fast-growing metropolis.

From one end to the other, King has become one of those thoroughfares that sum up what the 21st-century city is all about. Happily mixing old and new, residential and corporate, retail and recreational, King has it all. There’s even a streetcar line to knit this most diverse artery into an almost unified whole.

Lined with warehouses from the 1800s as well as brand-new buildings, it possesses a coherence rare in Toronto.

Though largely forgotten, its success dates back to the dying days of old Toronto, pre-amalgamation Toronto, when city council quietly implemented a bold experiment that changed zoning regulations and unleashed powerful urbanizing forces that are still playing out two decades later.

Basically, the new planning rules focused on built form rather than use. It worried less about whether a building was a place to live or work (or both) and more about how it fit into the neighbourhood.

This mixed-use approach is eminently sensible, but in the mid-1990s, when it was introduced under then-mayor Barbara Hall, it was considered radical. Since then, King has become a model for the new Toronto, a beacon of urbanity in a city under tremendous pressure from suburbanizers who believe it doesn’t accommodate the automobile as it should.

Sadly, for them, the Toronto now emerging will be even less friendly to the four-wheeled.

The Victory Condos – 478 King Street West

Sitting on the north side of King a block west of Spadina, this modest addition is content in its role as a fabric building, one of those unobtrusive structures that form part of the streetscape without defining it.

The 12-storey building, retail at grade, residential above, fits a pattern established more than 100 years ago: a ground floor outlined in stone addresses the sidewalk and, above that, a small number of floors are organized horizontally.

Its only nod to modernity is the top section where five storeys have been set back to be less obtrusive. As a result, the well-mannered Victory blends effortlessly, even respectfully, with its context.

What more could one hope for?

Finished in glass, the grey exterior of the condo is broken only the dash of a brilliant yellow door at street level. It’s a nice touch, one that enlivens the building as it draws attention away from what’s above.

As an argument for midrise buildings, the Victory says it all.

Grade:B+

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Contact Laurin Jeffrey for more information – 416-388-1960

Laurin Jeffrey is a Toronto Realtor with Century 21 Regal Realty. He did not
write these articles, he just reproduces them here for people who are
interested in Toronto real estate. He does not work for any builders.
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