Tommy & Lefebvre Reconstruction: Part 9

This is the last major post in the series on T&L's rise from the ashes. There are a few finishing touches to be done on the building, and I'll probably post a few photos once that's done.

In the previous post, the walls went up and a plastic bubble enshrouded the building while the brickwork was installed, as seen below in early February 2010:

In mid-February, the McLeod side was revealed. Double-tall black bricks surrounded the two ground-level display windows, and red brick covered the rest of the building. The corner remained unfinished.

One night in early March, the interior was lit, making it possible to see inside to the showroom, also unfinished.

The same night, you could see the progress on the front corner section.

A few days later, the plastic enclosure was removed from the Bank Street side, which has five display windows, plus office windows above. Already they're framing up behind the display, which unfortunately means that there won't be any natural light shining into the showroom.

Round the back of the building, two ladders lead to the top of the building. These have since been replaced with permanent emergency ladders. At the corner of the building is the rear public entrance, and at the right of the photo is the loading entrance. Some site services are located next to an emergency exit.

In early April, we can see the building flush up against the former wall of the old T&L building. Some flashing was added to connect the two. The grey band at the middle of the front of the building is steel I-beam sticking out at a shallow angle, flush with the building here, but sticking out as it gets to the corner of Bank and McLeod. There is also a recessed emergency exit, which as we saw in the previous post, has a reinforced ceiling leading to it.

In early April, the corner was more defined, with sliding doors installed at ground level and a decorative curved window frame above. The divider between the two display windows on McLeod was also more finished. At the roofline, one piece of metal cornice was installed near the corner, with the rest of the roofline awaiting more.

Above the front doors, the gap beneath the windows provided space for the door's electronics. This would later be covered up with more aluminum covering.

And the rest of the window display space was finishing construction.

In mid-April, new signs appeared in the black-brick sections next to the display windows. A sheathing was also installed on the first-storey cornice. It has factory-installed wrap covering it during installation to protect its surface treatment.

A week later, the sheathing installation was complete, at least at this end. The red-and-white Tommy & Lefebvre signs light up at night. We can also see two of the cross-members forming an "X" in the windows, which we saw during the earlier stages of construction.

The decorative band comes away from the wall as it approaches the corner, and is like a box around the support frame. It stops at the corner because a large grille--still being built at the time the store opened--will later be installed over the corner section.

It may or may not be related to this construction, or possibly the two large condo buildings going up across the way, but three penthouse units at the condo next door at 400 McLeod are for sale. There were also other real estate signs on other properties on McLeod.

This shot is from mid-April, at night. The "Open Winter 2009-10" sign was covered over with "Open April 2010", and the deadline was fast approaching.

But at noon on Wednesday, April 28, the new T&L store officially opened to the public. Let's take a look inside!

As you walk in, you immediately notice the vast two-storey showroom. There are many spacious displays of bike helmets, tennis rackets, and many other things. On the side wall is a projector showing live TV.

At the back is the stairway to access the offices, and also a mezzanine display level. Large posters wrap around the corner wall. The top of the stairs gives a good view of the ground floor showroom.

Obviously, the majority of the construction is complete. All that's left is to install the grille over the corner of the building, and the sign over top of it. Here's how it should look.

I hope you enjoyed this series. Make sure to check out the others by clicking on the Tours label. With it out of the way, I hope to get back to regular blogging very soon.

Tommy & Lefebvre Reconstruction: Part 8

This is the eighth, and nearly last, post in the series on T&L reconstruction. In the previous post, I covered the construction of the building's skeleton.

In this post, we'll be looking at the filling in of the walls and ceilings.

In mid-December, the snow started falling, so the roof installation and wall framing were timely.

A week later, the metal roof was finished and they had started to install the fibreglass wallboard, which comes in yellow packaging.

A few days later, this machine was pumping tar up to the roof for the finishing weather sealant. Much of the walls are still open, so we can see right into and through the building.

The artistic bike racks along Bank Street were wrapped in packing material to protect them during the ongoing construction. Behind, the windows along Bank Street have been installed.

On this shot from Christmas Eve, the fibreglass sheathing was formed around the front entrance at the corner, and the "Open Winter 09-10" sign was attached to it.

Meanwhile, scaffolding was beginning to go up around the building for the installation of the second-floor walls. The framing for the McLeod side windows was progressing since the photo above. In the background is the sales centre for the Central Phase II condos.

Around the back side of the building, a blue treatment was applied to the fibreglass sheathing, then some insulation on top of that. The scaffolding is being wrapped in plastic for weather protection.

The rear parking lot is normally full of construction workers' vehicles, but they're away on holidays today.

By mid-January, most of the blue banners advertising the reopening of Bank Street had started to fall down, as with this one bearing the words "Better than ever!" The plastic wrap on the T&L building had extended to the second floor, and some wooden makeshift doors had been installed at the corner.

A pallette of bricks was nearly empty and poking out from the foot of the tarp. Notice the double-high black bricks. Some large propane canisters were helping to provide heat to the bubble.

More bricks and propane tanks were on hand in the overflow parking lot across McLeod from T&L.

The two-storey scaffolding got to the corner of the building by the end of January 2010, and the plastic wrap was enshrouding the Bank Street side as well, including most of a recently-planted tree. A second set of modu-loc fencing created a protective sidewalk space for pedestrians.

In the next post, the bricks go on and the shroud comes off for the big reveal.

Tommy & Lefebvre Reconstruction: Part 7

In the previous post of the series on T&L demolition and reconstruction, I covered the construction of the foundation and basement level, and left off when the ground floor was a shiny white concrete slab.

Between then, in mid-November 2009, and nine days later, the skeleton of the entire building went up.

Starting at the back, near the parking lot, is the access to the basement, the walls for which we saw poured in the previous post.

Moving up along McLeod (seen here looking from Bank), we can see different lengths of metal laid out for the filling out of the skeleton. The boulevard between the building and sidewalk along McLeod was left unfinished by the Bank Street workers until the T&L construction got further along.

The trusses that form the floor of the second level go around the perimeter of the building, leaving a two-storey showroom floor in the middle of the building. A big change from the confined space of the old store, which was spread across three connected buildings.

At the corner is a wedge-shaped piece that is cantilevered away from the building and curved on the outside. This will form the distinctive entrance.

The border of the wall up against the neighbouring building, which contains the Vietnamese Kitchen restaurant on the ground floor, is still unfinished. In the foreground is one of Bank Street's decorative bike racks.

Inside the building is a stairway leading to the mezzanine/office level. A worker in the foreground attaches a red safety flag to a wire that is difficult to see. In the back, workers assemble the cinder-block rear section of the building.

Back a few days later, still in late November, there was some welding going on. Note the alignment of the truses on the roof level, reflecting Bank Street's skew from the rest of the street grid. That was evident during the demolition of the main building of the Metropolitan Bible Church, in photos I haven't yet gotten around to posting.

Still just a few days after the previous photo of this end of the building, a wall is being built bordering the Vietnamese Kitchen building, and the bike racks have been covered up for protection. Note the heavy-duty ladder-like structure on the ceiling of the first floor, next to the nearest post. That's reinforcement for the building's rear exit, which you can tell by the step in the foundation.

In early December 2009, the second storey floor was finished. If you zoom in, you can see the rendering of how it is supposed to look when completed. The design was updated since the early rendering posted in part 5.

And here's a shot looking down the McLeod street side, with the 400 McLeod condos in the background.

In the month since the first photo was taken in this post, a lot of work was done, yet the details are hard to see at first glance. The Xes at the far ends of each wall have been filled in, there's some scaffolding going up on the left, but not much else.

I'll try to get the next post up in two days, but I've got a lot of meetings this week, so it might be a bit longer than that. In the meantime, check out the archives, including the other Tours and multi-post series (click "older posts" at the bottom to view more).

Tommy & Lefebvre Reconstruction: Part 6

In the last post of the Series on T&L demolition and recontruction, I covered the emptying out of the site.

In today's double-long weekend edition, we watch the beginning of the build.

The permit to build was approved by City Council on July 8th, and construction was well underway later that month. Here they've removed the sand infill, and they've marked off the South wall.

By mid August, they had removed the former foundation walls and had begun forming the new ones along Bank Street. The orange things on the right are more forms, with the wall side lying flat on the ground.

The next morning, a crane was lifting the forms out of the way. During parts of this construction, McLeod had to be blocked off, so it was coverted to two-way traffic, hence the two conflicting one-way signs at the bottom right of the shot.

The rest of the foundation wall would require driving piles to hold back the ground. This bed of gravel was laid inside the former foundation wall to give the pile driver something to sit on as it does its work.

There's the pile driver there. Since the basement is only one storey, they didn't need a particularly tall one. Bank Street is a bit more dug up than in the similar shot back in June.

Here are the workers working with the pile driver. You can make out the grey tower of Centretown United Church (formerly McLeod-Stewarton United Church) in the background.

At the back corner of the lot is this somewhat inexplicable grove of trees, hidden from nearly all view. Looks like there's a bike rack there. I assume it's for the neighbouring condo building.

Back on the site, forms are going in for the footings of the basement floor. These two photos from mid-September form a virtual panorama. I'll leave it to your imagination to stitch them together, as my digital attempts didn't turn out too well. In the second photo, they're putting up rebar against the blue marks on the far wall.

Looking back in the opposite direction, we see some of the foundation blocks have already been poured. At the far end, there's a mound of asphalt-covered dirt, which will eventually return to its former use as the parking lot.

On top of that mound is the Site Office.

The bases for the foundation walls along McLeod are also getting together, with yellow braces holding the forms in place.

About a week later, the outer walls had been assembled and the inner wall bordering on the parking lot was going up.

There it is finished, as well as a shorter wall sticking in, likely for a stairway from the basement.

The corner of the wall is flattened back for the front entrance.

With the perimeter walls built, these rebar prairie dogs will become the columns that hold up the floor of the building.

When you look at them at some angles, as here in mid-October 2009, they look entirely random.

But a pattern becomes apparent on closer inspection. Here they've filled in the base to pour the basement floor, and are also readying to install the forms for the ground floor.

Just half a month later, the forms were laid for the ground floor, and heaps of rebar installed to hold it together.

Rather impressive, when you consider the hodgepodge of buildings that used to occupy the site.

Just a few days later, the ground floor was done and the forms removed. Bank Street's reconstruction was more or less done, save for finishing touches like the sidewalk being poured.

In the next post, we go from the ground up. See you in two three days.