STOREYS report on The Well: Is it Toronto's project of the decade?

10 Years In The Making, ‘The Well’ Is (Almost) Ready For Its Close-Up

SOURCE: STOREYS
AUTHOR: Zakiya Kassam
DATE: 07.20.23

The most recent update on The Well project in Toronto comes from STOREYS, an online platform for Canadian real estate news. The massive mixed-use development is partially open to the public while still under construction, with completion tentatively scheduled for late November 2023.

Consisting of seven different structures, development of The Well’s retail, residential, and office spaces was divided amongst several architects, including BDP London, Adamson Associates, and Hariri Pontarini Architects.

Below are two excerpts from the article:

Michael Conway, Associate Partner at Hariri Pontarini, prefers to define The Well as what it isn’t, rather than what it is.

“It’s not a mall,” he stresses. Instead, the development borrows from a “mixed-use retail” model you’re more likely to see in the UK, which, in this case, goes hand-in-hand with rejuvenating a long-standing stretch of the city centre.

“The main idea was that it isn’t this enclosed space that you walk into. It is part of the fabric of the city where these buildings are freestanding buildings and there’s no back-of-house. It’s given much more over to the pedestrian experience rather than the automobile,” says Conway.

Boston Valley manufactured white-glazed TerraClad® panels for the façade of The Well’s Building E. The inclusion of terra cotta in the design will nicely complement the historic brick architecture of the surrounding King Street West neighborhood.

In many ways, The Well is a lesson in innovative building design… At the same time, the development is deliberate in its nods to the long-standing history it’s being built on, around, and above. In the lobby of 8 Spadina, for instance, an art-deco doorframe from the entrance to the old Globe and Mail building is displayed near the elevators; “Celebrating the site’s publishing history,” it reads. Meanwhile, the use of wood, brick, and terra cotta-coloured steel embraces “the old industrial heritage” of King West.

“These are references to what we see within the district, as well as the bridges that crossover into this part of town,” says Conway. “So picking up a little bit of that language as a way of having it feel as though it’s a reference to the past, but also it’s a way of building into the future.”