Item - 2019.TE3.79

The Toronto and East York Community Council:

1. Directed the Senior Manager, Heritage Preservation Services, complete the evaluation of the property at 235 Carlaw Avenue according to provincial criteria Regulation 9/06 and finalize recommendations to designate The Wrigley Building to conserve the cultural heritage value of the landmark property and maintain the historic industrial character of the Carlaw-Dundas area. 

Carlaw-Dundas is a former industrial area in the City's east end that has been undergoing a transformation, emerging as a mixed-use creative and cultural hub of workers and residents.  The Wrigley Building and many of the other buildings in the Carlaw – Dundas area were identified in 2014 as potentially having significant heritage value.

The property at 235 Carlaw Avenue contains a building complex commissioned as the Canadian branch of Chicago’s William Wrigley, Jr. Company Limited (afterward William Wrigley, Jr. Company Limited of Canada), producers of chewing gum.  The five-storey North Building was completed in 1916 according to the plans of Toronto architects, Prack and Perrine, followed by the near-identical South Building in 1919, with the design purportedly modelled on the parent company’s Chicago factory. 

As one of the largest companies in Leslieville, Wrigley’s was noted during World War II for providing all its products to the Canadian military, including the Red Cross packages distributed to prisoners of war.  As the location of Wrigley’s and the Canadian Chewing Gum Company on Logan Avenue, Leslieville was nicknamed “the Chewing Gum Capital of Canada.”  With its scale and impressive Edwardian Classical detailing, the Wrigley Building complex is a local landmark on Carlaw Avenue and in Leslieville.

I am asking you to support this motion to ensure that this building is maintained as a key heritage asset, and a centrepiece of the Carlaw – Dundas Area.