Yonge-Bloor site sold

Toronto is now gripped with fear, as the threat of wealthy rioting Prada clad ex-condo buyers filling the garbage ladened streets, demanding justice...or perhaps just another neighbourhood to bull dose.

Kazakhstan-backed developer Michael Gold is selling his prime property at Yonge and Bloor Sts., signalling that his planned glass tower condo and hotel project may be dead.

Gold made the decision as part of his court-approved plan to keep the property out of receivership, where his main creditor tried to send him earlier this week.

Read more here.

Yonge and Bloor

Good news for Toronto's wealthy, as Bazis has unleashed the lawyers to fend off the creditors (until August).

Good news for our little Veronika Belovich also, as she can go back (perhaps temporarily) to pulling the wool over the eyes of the gullible rich. Let the sound bites return!

The rest of us in the teaming masses, we can rest easy knowing the rich will be properly housed, not roaming the streets "hey buddy, can you spare $50,000?" We'll just go back to the fields, repeating "condos are good, Yorkville is the core of the city, 2 million for a shoebox is reasonable"...eventually we might even begin to believe it.

Lawyers representing the owner of 1 Bloor reached a deal with creditors yesterday, holding off receivership proceedings on the landmark development until mid-August.

Bazis International has not made payments since December on the $46-million dollar loan it received to build an 80-storey tower, what was to be the largest residential building in Canada, at the southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor streets.

Read more here.

And from the land of barking mad, this article daring to suggest the space might be used for the general public. Raving lunacy to be sure, but entertaining...

No one takes joy in the misfortune of others, but the apparent bad news about the proposed condo at Yonge and Bloor could be great news for Toronto.

We know, we know, the chances the city will take advantage of the situation are remote to non-existent, yet the opportunity to wrest the now-derelict site from its squabbling owners and turn it into something worthy – a public square, say – will never come again.

A dream, a fantasy. Toronto will never ever make room for a space that is purely for the public, not without a corporate stamp on it.

But one can dream....

Read more here.

Bloor 1, Bazis 0

Dear God, where will the rich live now?

NO NO! How terrible! Our poor little Veronika Belovich (the Condo PR Queen of Tocondo) will be living in a crate under the Gardner! Come on everybody, cough up 8 million (each) and buy up a condo now!

Bahhhhhhh....

The gleaming 80-storey condominium tower that was to lead the revitalization of the Yonge-Bloor intersection in Toronto is teetering on the edge of extinction.

On Monday, the Toronto lender that advanced a $46 million loan is going to ask a court to put the Kazakhstan-backed project into receivership and sell off the now-vacant land its international developer boasts is the "best address in the world."

Read more here.

The court documents are peppered with international intrigue...

A Yonge & Bloor window worth saving

Who cares about some window? How thoughtless of you, there are rich people waiting for this condo project.

Why our own little Veronika Belovich is there every day, sledge hammer in hand, helping..."It's a trashy corner *SMASH*. I'm helping to make it fabulous!" *SMASH* *SMASH*

When is any window not worth looking through and what view, in the city, is not better framed?

Allow me a digression.

There are the early signs of construction at the corner of Yonge and Bloor Sts. We will soon have a new tall tower, part of Toronto's ongoing facelift.

Facelift might not be the right word.

We have been pierced – the metal shards that squat on the old stones of the Royal Ontario Museum are like your granny with a tongue stud and an eyebrow ring.

We have been botoxed – that bland block of banality on the southeast corner of Bay and Dundas Sts. is the face of the city frozen in a grim commercial grin.

We will, I suppose, get used to it. This is how it has always been around here. No one has the guts or the power to stop a lousy project...

Read more here.

Veronika Belovich, Condo Queen

Veronika Belovich Big and Shiny = Good

Just some collected saying from our little Veronika Belovich, the Condo Queen of Toronto (from a more innocent age when the rich actually believed they were liked).

Yes, Ms. Belovich does seem to be singlehandedly ridding neighbourhoods of those nasty poor who can't afford to go "back [to] the heady days of cities like New York in the 20s and 30s, where anyone who was anyone lived in a top-notch hotel"

Her social snobbery and shocking lack of historical knowledge aside...Enjoy. The rest of you who aren't anyone, fuck off and move away.

"As a nation, we say that we want to limit sprawl. We should be raising children in two-bedroom condos – it only makes sense."

"I think it's going to change the neighbourhood," Ms. Belovich adds. "It's going to make people want to cross the street and [stay] on Bloor."

"We're trying to make the city better. This is a junky corner and we want to make it a fabulous area."

"It's happenin'. It's for someone who wants to step outside at four in the morning and be able to get a cab; or go to Yorkville for dinner or go to Holt Renfrew -- someone who wants to be in the core of the city, who doesn't want to miss any action."

"Location, location, location," she said of the units, which range in price from $300,000 to $2 million. "There's just so much demand."

"This is their dream home and they want what they want."

"They're going to be sparkling twin towers in the colour of emeralds...Residents never have to step outside"

"We want to mark the occasion with a street side breakfast party in the heart of Toronto."

Better hurry, while there's still any street life left.

Condos

Moving on in the face of change and urban renewal can be difficult. In the case of about 20 businesses at the southeast corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets, the prospect of relocating has suddenly become all too real.

Bazis International of Concord is scheduled to construct a 79-storey complex at the site and intends to start demolition in December. And so recently it sent out lease-termination notices. That's when reality set in.

How dare they whine. Rich people need proper housing too!

...the price range for its condos: $300,000 for a one-bedroom unit to over $2-million for a full-floor penthouse of close to 10,000 square feet.

Oh thank God, I thought they wouldn't be affordable.

Oh and btw, this is not urban renewal (no condo project is)...

Veronika Belovich, Bazis's director sales and marketing, said: "We're trying to make the city better. This is a junky corner and we want to make it a fabulous area."

Oh sorry, I must be mistaken...

Read more here.