North Toronto Station

This project included complex site plan issues with multiple property lines and ownership. Stakeholders included CP Rail, the Toronto Transit Commission, the retail tenant, adjacent condominium owners, and the City of Toronto. Though the building was to serve as the Summerhill LCBO outlet — the largest liquor store in Canada — freight trains still ran behind the station.

The Canadian Pacific Railway constructed this Beaux Arts station on their mid-Toronto line in 1915. Designed by the well-known architectural firm of Darling and Pearson, the building served as the city’s main station from 1916 until 1927—at which time Union Station was opened. Clad with Tyndall limestone from Manitoba, the building housed the ticket office and waiting rooms lined with high quality materials, including marble and decorative plaster. A clock tower, fashioned after the campanile of St Marks in Venice, was visible from afar.

Closed as a station in the mid 1920’s, the site was converted to a Brewers Retail Outlet and LCBO in the 1940s. While alterations by the retail tenants had obscured many architectural features, in some instances, these alterations actually served to protect those elegant details, which GBCA uncovered and restored while designing an interior space that would suit the needs of the prime tenant. Additions were sympathetically integrated into the original site fabric.

Work included cleaning and repairing the exterior Tyndall limestone, the installation of a new clock in the landmark tower and the restoration of the interior 40-foot-high (12-metre) ceiling and the original floors.

For their rehabilitation of the North Toronto Station, the owner, Woodcliffe Corporation, was recognized with the first ever Heritage Canada Corporate Prize.