King/ Portland/ Adelaide/ Bathurst Block
Toronto
The King/Spadina Area, one of the 'Kings' two large areas flanking downtown Toronto has been experiencing an extraordinary revival since the introduction the introduction in the mid 1990's an innovative regulatory framework encouraging mixed-use development in these former industrial sites. Typically the blocks in the Kings are extremely large with many individual owners, reflecting the former pattern of industrial use. One of the challenges has been to shape contiguous development of new buildings on adjoining deep lots to produce coherent built form and a vibrant active public realm with a finer grained pedestrian network. On the block bounded by King Portland Adelaide and Bathurst Streets, Ken Greenberg worked with Context Development, Hariri Pontarini Architects and the Planning Partnership along with two adjoining land owners and their design consultants and the area Councilor Adam Vaughan to develop a comprehensive Block Plan with a continuous and integrated public realm activated by retail and public uses that will guide all of the re-development on this critical block and establish a precedent for adjacent blocks.