Public Notice

TAKE NOTICE that Council for the City of Toronto intends to designate the property, including the lands, buildings and structures thereon known municipally as 1206, 1208 and 1210 Yonge Street under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.O.18, as amended, as a property of cultural heritage value or interest.

Reasons for Designation

The properties at 1206, 1208 and 1210 Yonge Street are worthy of designation under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act for their cultural heritage value, and meet Ontario Regulation 9/06, the provincial criteria prescribed for municipal designation under the categories of design and physical, historical and associative, and contextual value.

Description

Built in 1907-1908, the set of three Main Street Commercial Row buildings at 1206-1210 Yonge Street is located on the west side of Yonge Street just north of Birch Avenue – a historic transit hub in the City's north end where a busy Yonge Street thoroughfare intersected at grade with the CPR rail line and its train station south of the tracks, as well as the proposed southern terminus of the Toronto and York Radial Company streetcar line whose tracks and terminals were planned and partially executed just west of Yonge Street from Farnham to Birch Avenue in 1911-1912 before the project was reversed by order of Privy Council in the following year.

The City's regrading of this portion of Yonge Street to increase pedestrian and vehicular safety through grade separation between the street and the CPR tracks in 1914-1916 resulted in partial excavation of the basement level and the addition of raised and recessed entry stairs to the main storefront entrances at 1206 and 1208 Yonge Street to align with this newly defined street level. The subject buildings, together with the abutting Main Street Commercial Block at 1196-1204 Yonge Street (1889), anchor the northwest quadrant of this historically significant intersection of Yonge Street the CPR rail line that necessitated the vehicular underpass/rail overpass where it crosses Yonge Street at the edge of the city's Summerhill neighbourhood, standing as a remnant portion of the area's streetscape condition prior to the early-20th century projects culminating in the current configuration of transportation infrastructure at this location.

Statement of Cultural Heritage Value

Physical and Design Value

The collection of three, 2-storey, brick Main Street Commercial Row-type buildings at 1206-1210 Yonge Street is valued as a significant representative example of the commercial and residential main street row buildings constructed in Toronto during the Edwardian era. The principal (east) elevations fronting onto Yonge Street maintains much of its 1907-1908 design, style and detailing including the floor-to-ceiling storefront window openings with off-set entrances at street level with wooden cornice above, centred bay window with brick header at the second storey, and all surmounted by a decorative brickwork cornice at the roofline at 1206 and 1210.

Archival photos indicate that the middle property at 1208 Yonge Street originally contained a semi-circular parapet wall that has since been removed.

The architectural response to the newly lowered and sloped street grade along this portion of Yonge Street required the addition of raised and recessed stairs up to the main entrances on the principal (east) elevations to permit pedestrian access. The properties at 1206-1208 1206-1208 include a short flight of entrance steps that lead up to a recessed ground floor entrance while the stairs at 1210 Yonge are internal to the entrance. This physical adaptation and evolution of the entry stairs is valued as an enhancement to the original design rather than a detraction. 

Historical and Associative Value

The row of mixed-use buildings at 1206-1210 Yonge Street, along with the adjacent corner property at 1196-1204 Yonge is valued for its association with the widening and regrading of this portion of Yonge Street in 1914-1916, a contentious and highly publicized infrastructural project involving the City of Toronto, the Toronto and York Radial Company and Canadian Pacific Railway Company. The resulting 2.5 degree slope of Yonge Street to produce an 18ft height clearance below a new rail overpass is physically manifested in the adapted entries of the subject properties by partially excavating and exposing the original basement to align with the new street grade.

All of these elements contribute to an understanding of the collection's physical and design evolution while maintaining many of the original features that yield an understanding of the earlier, historic condition of this portion of Yonge Street where it crossed the railway tracks at grade. The properties are also valued for the information they yield about the turbulent political situation created by the ensuing civic transportation infrastructure project involving all levels of government including the Privy Council of Canada, as well as the City Beautiful movement during which it was undertaken – an early urban planning effort promoting civic beauty through architectural and urban design, of which the heritage-designated Beaux-Arts style North Toronto Rail Station designed by Darling & Pearson in 1916 on the southeast quadrant of this intersection stands as the crown jewel following its own adaptations to the concurrent infrastructure activity on site.  

Contextual Value

Contextually, the set of three Main Street Commercial Row buildings have cultural heritage value for maintaining and supporting the historic character of this portion of Yonge Street. Situated together on the west side of Yonge Street between Birch Avenue and Alcorn Avenue, along with the adjacent Main Street Commercial Block building at 1196-1204 Yonge, the properties survive as important contributors in maintaining the late-19th to early-20th century main street commercial built form evolution of the area. Here, a broader historic precinct is formed at three of four points where Yonge Street intersects with the CPR overpass, anchored by the landmark CPR North Toronto Station (1916), with the adjoining late-19th century commercial buildings at 1095-1099, 1101 and 1105 Yonge and, on the west side of Yonge south of the tracks, the collection of ten late-19th to early-20th century properties at 1148-1176 Yonge Street as well as the former Pierce Arrow Showroom (1930) at 1140 Yonge.  All of the latter sites are recognized on the City of Toronto's Heritage Register for their cultural heritage value.

The Main Street Commercial Row at 1206-1210 Yonge Street is historically, visually, functionally and physically linked to its surroundings where it stands on the west side of Yonge Street north of Birch Avenue as a significant example of its type with its massing and stylistic details characteristic of the early-20th century and typically located along the city's main commercial thoroughfares. The conversion of the subject buildings following their lowering in 1914-1916 to incorporate raised and recessed entry stairs speaks to the inextricable historical, visual, functional and physical linkages of their evolved form to contemporary civic infrastructural changes required by the adjacent and pre-existing CPR rail line.   

Heritage Attributes

Design or Physical Value

Attributes that contribute to the value of the Main Street Commercial Row at 1206-1210 Yonge Street being a significant representative example of the type with Edwardian era styling:

• The setback, placement and orientation of the properties on their adjacent mid-block lots on the west side of Yonge Street between Birch Avenue and Alcorn Avenue
• The 2-storey scale, form and massing of the properties on a rectangular plan with a flat roof 
• The materials, with the red brick cladding (currently painted) and the brick and wood detailing
• The corbelled brick cornice along the roofline at 1206 and 1210 Yonge Street on the east elevation
• The semi-circular parapet wall along the roofline at 1208 Yonge Street (currently missing)
• The east elevation of the three properties, each with commercial storefront space at street level and residential bay window above (bay currently missing at 1206 Yonge Street)
• The continuous wooden cornice above the first storey that spans the east elevation of all three properties
• At the second-storey level, the decorative brick headers above the centred window openings

Historical or Associative Value

Attributes that contribute to the value of the subject buildings for their association with the 1914-1916 regrading of this portion of Yonge Street:

• The raised and recessed main entrances on the east elevations, including the internal main entrance stair alteration at 1210 Yonge Street

Contextual Value

Attributes that contribute to the value of the Main Street Commercial Row buildings at 1206-1210 Yonge Street as defining, supporting and maintain the historic character of the area and being historically, visually, functionally and physically linked to their setting:

• The setback, placement and orientation of the properties on their adjacent mid-block lots on the west side of Yonge Street between Birch Avenue and Alcorn Avenue

Notice of Objection to the Notice of Intention to Designate

Notice of an objection to the Notice of Intention to Designate the Property may be served on the City Clerk, Attention: Administrator, Secretariat, City Clerk's Office, Toronto City Hall, 2nd Floor West, 100 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2N2.; Email: hertpb@toronto.ca within thirty days of July 26, 2022, which is August 25, 2022. The notice of objection to the Notice of Intention to Designate the Property must set out the reason(s) for the objection and all relevant facts.