Public Art in West Harbour City –

Plazacorp, the developer of West Harbour City on the lands under the Molsons building on Fleet Street in the Fort York Neighbourhood, is moving ahead on its commitment to provide art for the first phase of its development. Since 1985 it has been the City of Toronto’s policy to condition rezonings and site plan approvals on a public art contribution of 1% of a project’s construction costs. In the past these contributions have included such eye-catchers as Joe Fafard’s cows at the TD Centre and the arching-girder design by architect Santiago Calatrava for the Galleria at BCE Place. Public art projects are approved by the Urban Development Services department and the Public Art Commission, a citizens’ advisory body.

Phase One at West Harbour City is a city-block bounded by Fleet Street on the south, future Bastion Street and June Callwood Park on the west, Grand Magazine Street on the east and Sloping Sky Mews on the north. This block can be located on the plan of streets in the Fort York Neighbourhood that appeared in Fife & Drum, v. 9, no. 2 (May 2005), available on our website . The principal building in Phase One is a 36-storey tower terraced above the 11th-floor podium on the north side facing the fort. Clad in precast panels that are a limestone colour and having very large windows to give it a distinctly residential appearance, it will contain about 460 condominium units. Quadrangle Architects are responsible for its design.

The public-art element will take the form of a frieze at the third-storey level to be designed by one of six competing artists–James Carl, Carlo Cesta, Christian Eckhart, Nelson Kruger and the team of Susan Schelle and Mark Gomes–with the winner to be chosen by a five-person jury of curators, artists, and representatives of Quadrangle and Plazacorp. Their choice, expected to cost about $1 million to execute, will be announced in May. To make way for Phase One the largest Molson building will be demolished shortly, and construction will follow in the Spring.

Later phases of West Harbour City will have their own public-art elements too, although these have yet to be worked out in detail. In Phase Two on the block east of Phase One the contribution is proposed to be “small gestures” having an artistic theme related to Fort York and costing about $250,000. In Phase Three on the block north of Phase One it is proposed to be an enrichment of June Callwood Park and is budgeted at about $200,000.