It's just a five-storey deep hole in the ground today but when complete, the Karma Condos on Grenville Street will cast a 50-storey shadow over the corner of Yonge and College. Karma Condos is another collaboration between Lifetime Developments and CentreCourt Developments (the people behind The Four Seasons and Lumiere), and is scheduled for completion next year. All 495 units are sold out; prices range from around $190,000 for a studio to around $600,000 for a three-bedroom suite. There are a couple of cool amenities, like a sound room with extra-heavy soundproofing and the technology to host a jam-band session or a DJ kit. There's also a gaming room that'll have large projection screens and whatever state-of-the-art gaming consoles and software will be around when the building is complete (right now, that's looking like late 2015).
Right now the real story is happening at street level, where the 140-year-old John Irwin House squats on two huge columns while construction goes on around it. The house is listed in the city's inventory of heritage properties, and some pretty heroic steps were taken to preserve it or at least the shell of it. Right now the construction company is using it for their site office, but once the project is complete the Irwin House will be converted into a restaurant or retail space; thereby making it a real Karma chameleon.
· Historic Home Perched Five Storeys Above Solid Ground So 50-Storey Condo Can Rise Behind 19th Century Dwelling [National Post]
· Heritage Gets Some New Legs at Karma Condos [UrbanToronto]
· 15 Toronto Architectural Gems Under Threat [NOW]