Back on track
The museum that struggled to find its footing in the Junction Triangle is getting a second chance. Its $5.7M construction loan was waived by Castlepoint, one of the developers bringing a planned community and arts-focused businesses to sites surrounding i
Last month Alfredo Romano had the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head. The Museum of Contemporary Art ( MOCA) — his anchor tenant at the Castlepoint Auto Building in the Junction Triangle — was struggling to complete a $ 25- million capital campaign against overwhelming odds. Queen’s Park pulled funding, its executive suite was a revolving door and COVID-19 was crippling attendance. MOCA also owed a $5.7-million construction loan to Castlepoint under a long- term lease agreement.
With the viability of MOCA hanging in the balance, Romano hit the reset button, forgiving the museum’s capital loan and allowing it to complete its Tomorrow of Contemporary Art campaign with a clean balance sheet.
“MOCA’S future is now more secure,” says developer Romano, president of Toronto’s Castlepoint Numa Inc. “Several other key donors have also stepped up. It will be one of the few Canadian cultural institutions with a balanced budget at the end of this challenging year as a result.”
This philanthropic gesture not only stabilizes MOCA, but also ensures that Castlepoint’s original vision of creating a mixeduse community anchored by a cultural institution in a 101- year- old heritage building remains intact.
“Alfredo Romano cares a lot about Toronto,” says Paul Bedford, chair of the Waterfront Toronto Design Review Panel and the City of Toronto’s first chief planner following amalgamation. “He has faith in its long-term future, which is reflected in the sensitivity perseverance he brings to his projects.”
With Marlin Spring Investments and Hines Interests Ltd., Castlepoint is transforming a semi- industrial strip dominated by a Nestlé chocolate factory into West Queen West 2.0., in a pocket of Toronto with a much better transportation infrastructure than Queen Street. The neighbourhood has two subway stops — Dundas West and Lansdowne — a GO Transit/ UP Express station, streetcar lines in the Bloor- Dundas corridor and a connection to the West Toronto Railpath trail. Residents will be able to hop a GO or UP Express and be at Union Station in the downtown core in as little as 12 minutes.
“I’m personally very excited about the Sterling Junction project,” says Pedro Lopes, SVP of land development and acquisitions at Toronto’s Marlin Spring, who grew up nearby in the gritty multicultural mosaic of Bloor- Dufferin. “We’re always interested in developing areas with really good access to a public transport hub.”
Marlin Spring will deliver three condo properties flanking the Castlepoint Auto Building, a 10- storey, industrial deco structure that began life as an Alcan aluminum factory in 1919 and was later turned into an auto- parts plant before being abandoned to graffiti artists and urban spelunkers for nearly a decade.
In 2008, Castlepoint acquired and reclaimed the Junction Triangle’s signature landmark — at 57 metres briefly the tallest building in Toronto — with the help of heritage design firm ERA Architects. “It’s a gorgeous building with so much history,” says Bedford, a city planner. “Alfredo is a developer who honestly cares about heritage and takes time to get things right.”
The Marlin Spring residences will encompass 650 units spread over 537,000 square feet, with public amenities that include affordable daycare, parklands and a community plaza. “We took our design cue from the cadence and rhythm of the Castlepoint building,” says Enzo Corazza, principal with architectural firm Graziani + Corazza. “The intent was to express an industrial vocabulary in a contemporary way.”
The first mid- rise will be constructed of locally sourced brick with large window modules and sliding doors that open onto compact Juliette balconies. A two- storey stone base will surround the retail component.
Adding to the residential mix of Sterling Junction, Castlepoint is developing a mid- rise rental property with 100 units on a nearby parcel of land. Located at 72 Perth Ave. at Bloor Street West, adjacent to a row of 32 modernist town houses Castlepoint completed a year ago, its geometric lines and two- storey squares are evocative of Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico’s The Enigma of the Hour. Roughly 20 per cent of the rental dwellings will be priced below market.
In the interim, Castlepoint has repurposed the site, formerly a Baptist church, into a community space at a cost of $ 120,000. Filipino artist Bianca Roco — a protégé of Canadian symbolist painter Kent Monkman, who was recently commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to produce two epic paintings — mounted an exhibit there this month.
Hines Canada, meanwhile, is developing three commercial buildings with 420,000 square feet of capacity to the south. They’re positioned between MOCA and the refurbished factories occupied by the Drake Commissary and Henderson Brewing, who followed Castlepoint into the Junction Triangle. Their minimalist design relies on heavy timber to create a grid of oversized fenestrations encasing glass.
None of the new structures will eclipse the Castlepoint Auto Building, officially renamed Auto BLDG, by exceeding its height. In addition to MOCA, the anchor property’s other prominent occupants include ad agency Junction59, who invested $ 1.5 million in a workspace created by Junction designers and artisans; Folks VFX, a visual effects company whose Hollywood clients include Marvel, Disney and Netflix; Zeidler Partnership Architects; and arts group The Toronto Biennial.
The Akin Collective maintains studio space for 20 working artists above MOCA, and Pride Toronto is moving in from Church- Wellesley. “We’re very happy with the constellation of people occupying the Castlepoint Auto Building,” says Romano, who secured the tenants with the precision of a curator at the Getty in Los Angeles. “It’s an exciting and eclectic group covering a wide spectrum of the arts and digital media.”
It’s possible that the Castlepoint Auto Building will have more creative fire power per square foot than any other building in Toronto. “I’m energized by this community every day,” says Marc Cooper, president of Junction59, who moved his company from Davisville two years ago and occupies one and a half floors. “Our creative directors can do their job anywhere, but being surrounded by other creative people is an advantage. There’s a convergence of subways, streetcars, trains and communication paths here that’s palpable. It’s what the Junction is about.”
It’s a gorgeous building with so much history.