Pawned Off

The property is fenced off around the alleyway with a way in, so getting in involves hopping a fence in on a busy street. Apart from that, hazards are limited to used needles on some rooftops and broken glass in some places. Also, the north east building, just behind the jewlery store either has a lot of fake plants, or a squatter. I’ll plan to go back in the spring and check again to see if anything has moved.

I can’t find too much on the history of these buildings specifically, so old photos will have to do and street view will have to do. The building with the ‘tower’ on the corner was originally built as a drug store in the 50s. It stayed as a drug store for about 15 years. In 1960s Queen and Church street saw a large change. These buildings, and many on the street turned into thrift stores, pawnshops, and used jewelery dealers. From what I could find, every single building along this intersection was a thrift store or pawn shop at one point or another. Some of them changes names and owners over the years. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that the “Thrift Sport Store” in the towered building on the corner went out of business. Not long went by before the building was picked up by Gino’s Pizza, who painted the entire building in their flagship colour. Gino’s stayed there for just over a decade before the beloved pizza place shut down in November of 2012. The now yellow building stayed abandoned until May of 2012 where Shawarma’s King posted a sign that they were “coming soon.” By May of 2013, they were proudly open as other pawn stores and thrift stores started to close. Specifically one two doors up that I managed to get into. Three pawnbrokers and pawnshops that were just around the corner had also closed in the past year. The shawarma was so good it had started a trend.

By November of 2014, those three pawnshops had turned into a single thai-japanese restaurant. It stayed there until August of 2018 where the Pemberton Group had bought out the lease, and the restaurant went under

It was actually in 2017 that the Pemberton Group began to buy out the leases for these buildings, starting with the thai place and then moving around the corner to Shawarma’s King and even the pawnshops. The agreement was that the businesses would be able to continue to occupy the space for the seeable future at a new price. In the meantime, the Pemberton Group was attempting to have the property re-zoned. The original plan was for a 54 storey apartment building with 463 individual units. The gross area of residential and non-residential area is equal to 336,910 square feet. That’s close to the interior footprint of the Hearn, on a 3 wide building lot.

On August 6th, 2018 that zoning application was closed (not approved) and it seems that the Pemberton Group took a hiatus on their plan. From what I could tell, the Toronto Local Appeal Body believed that this building would have an impact on the nearby area, and so they weren’t willing to approve it without proof of otherwise, but also didn’t want to deny it.

The both buildings that I had access to had been abandoned since 2018, but both of them appeared to have some kind of renevations done in a last ditch effort to get them leased before they were boarded shut.

In late September of 2021, the Pemberton Group came back with exactly what TLAB was looking for. They offered a Noise Impact Study, which offers a comparison between the average noise level of construction compared to the surrounding construction, church bells, TTC rail lines, and even the flight paths of the nearby hospitals. At that time they also conducted a Transportation Impact Study, Vibration Study, Sun/Shadow Study. With a total of 400 pages worth of supporting information suggesting this building to go through to demolition and construction. This was not enough for the TLABs. Unlike other developers who struggle with funding, the The Pemberton was worth an estimated 1.8 billion CAD as of 2021. This meant that they had the resources to continue in hopes of demolishing this building by submitting another 800 pages worth of plans, impact studies, initiatives, notices, and adjustments.

Throughout 2022, most of the shops that this new building is going to be built on had either abandoned or shut down. They were still open to leasing as a way to keep money coming in to cover taxes, but since then none of the buildings have been occupied.

In Febuary, they changed the layout of apartments on each floor, along with the layout of elevators and some other things. Recently, on March 2nd they submitted a 3D plan of the building along with a cover document. I suspect that they will soon be looking into applying for a rezoning. With the commitment that they’ve gone through, it’s no suspect that this will pass and these historic buildings will be leved.

With the decals on all the windows, these buildings have remarkably cool lighting. From pink, to a red and blue contrast. Definetly potential for some great portraits. When standing on the steps of the best camera store in Toronto, the building closest to you is inaccessible. The next two are both easy to get into, but the 4th one in is the most interesting. You can look down through a skylight and see cubicules in an office left perfectly clean. The 5th and 6th buildings are abandoned on the front, but seems to either have squatters or residents still living at the back. If neither are true then the other option is a time capsule, but it seems unlikely in this area.