Merchandise Building

Southeast side of the Merchandise Building

The Merchandise Building is a loft conversion of a historic warehouse located in downtown Toronto, near the campus of Ryerson University and the Eaton Centre. Built in various stages from 1910-1949 for the Simpson's department store, and later owned by Sears Canada after Simpson's demise, the Merchandise Building is one of the largest structures in Toronto at over 1,000,000 square feet and is a classic example of the renowned Chicago School of early 20th century industrial architecture.

History

The oldest part of the site is a six-story manufactory built in 1910 on Dalhousie Street for Simpson's delivery business. Behind it on Mutual Street in 1914 the growing company added the "Robert Simpson Co Ltd Mail-Order Building", a large distribution warehouse. Further expansion occured in 1931 and 1949, tripling the size of the building, yet still conforming to the clean lines of the original design. The building architect was Max Dunning of the the firm of Burke, Horwood and White, also responsible in Toronto for what is now the Citytv building on Queen Street West. Contrary to popular belief, Dunning and his firm were not responsible for the Tip Top Tailor building - although sharing many design aspects with the Merchandise Building, it was produced in the year 1929 by the firm of Bishop & Miller.

The Rober Simspson Co Ltd Mail-Order Building incorporated many features, that while commonplace today, were relatively novel at the time - a steel structure, reinforced, fire-proof concrete, well-positioned emergency stairwells, and large windows for natural light. The building's water needs were assisted by a 40,000 gallon rooftop water tower, which is still in use today.

The complex - which eventually came to be known by the less cumbersome name of "the Mutual Street Building", continued to serve the needs of the company until the winds of economic change forced it to close its catalogue service in the mid 1970's and sell out to one of its old rivals, the venerable Hudson's Bay Company, which eventually retired the Simpson's brand in 1991. Many properties were sold to Sears Canada, including the old warehouse. When that company moved its catalogue operations to the sububrs in 1991, it became the property of the City of Toronto.

Conversion

Happily at the same time the new mayor of Toronto, Barbara Hall, had relaxed zoning restrictions in certain areas of the downtown core, allowing redevelopment of under-used or empty 19th and 20th century factories and warehouses. There was a plan to convert the warehouse into public housing, but the City in the end sold the property to Crestford Developments (some say for a song). The project was one of the earliest and by far the largest warehouse loft conversions in Toronto. The ambitious plan to completely modernize the building was delayed by a general construction strike and a spectacular 3 alarm fire, started when a worker tossed a cigarette butt into one of the old frieght elevator shafts, landing on a massive pile of debris dumped from all the floors to be cleared from the bottom. The huge pile burned for hours, but the building did not, testament to the original designer's intent in 1914 to create a structure as fire-proof as possible.

Among the many modernizations was a green roof, irrigated by the original water tower from 1914 and thermally coated windows to reduce energy loss. Other environmental upgrades inculded a "Tri-Sorter" recycling shute that accomodates 3 types of waste. The entire building was wired with fibre-optic cable, has a rooftop pool, patio, and dog-walking area, and all the usual ammenities in a large condominium. The noted interior design team of Simone-Ciccone and the award winning designer Brian Gluckstein produced between them nine different primary suite layouts with over sixty varations. Notable interior features inlcude 8 foot sliding barn doors, 12 foot ceilings with exposed duct work and support pillars with capitals, and nine foot windows. The ground floor of the building is retail, anchored by a 24-hour supermarket.

When it was finally completed in the late 1990's, the project garnered several awards including a commendation from Heritage Toronto and several awards from the Greater Toronto Home Builders Association. The conversion even pleased the notoriously critical architechture writer for the Toronto Star, Christopher Hume, who gave the project an "A".

References

• "The Merchandise Building - Original Lofts, Original Story" by Greg Lindberg, 2002, 122 pages. *Merchandise Lofts Building Green Roof Case Study
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• Christopher Hume, Architecture and Urban Affairs writer, Toronto Star, September 29, 2001.
• "Renovation with Imagination: The old Sears Warehouse Building in Downtown Toronto has Become the Merchandise Building." Building. Toronto: Aug/Sep 1996.Vol.46, Iss. 4; pg. 12