Item - 2022.PB35.4

The Toronto Preservation Board submits the item to the Toronto and East York Community Council without recommendation.

Kristen Flood, Planner, Heritage Preservation, Urban Design, City Planning gave a presentation on Alterations to a Heritage Property and Authority to Enter into a Heritage Easement Agreement - 95 St. Joseph Street.

This report recommends that City Council approve the alterations proposed for St. Basil's Seminary (designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act) in connection with the development of the subject property. The development is the subject of an Official Plan Amendment and a Zoning By-law Amendment application under the Planning Act.

The property contains St. Basil's Seminary, now known as the Cardinal Flahiff Basilian Centre, which is an important example of the work of the great, 20th-century Canadian architect and engineer, Ernest Cormier (1885-1980). Cormier's other notable commissions include the Supreme Court of Canada building in Ottawa. The four-storey seminary complex was completed in 1951 as part of the Basilian Fathers centennial project to expand St. Michael's College. The seminary expresses Cormier's characteristic balance of Modernism with tradition and the St. Basil's Seminary Chapel interior, is especially significant as representative of Cormier's work. The property also contains Newman Hall Chapel, designed in 1913 by Arthur W. Holmes.

The development application proposes a 39-storey, mixed-use tower with a 12-storey podium that incorporates a portion of St. Basil's Seminary and relocates the interior Seminary Chapel. The retained portions of the Seminary are proposed to be restored in the alternative location with minor modifications to support the new interior programming. The Newman Hall Chapel is proposed to be demolished. Overall, the alterations conserve the onsite and adjacent heritage properties and are consistent with the existing heritage policy framework. The heritage impacts of the development proposal are appropriately mitigated through the overall conservation strategy.