Toronto, Ontario, Canada
With a design rooted in sustainability, Loblaws Groceteria Warehouse Adaptive Re-Use by architectsAlliance turns a heritage building on Toronto’s waterfront into a community hub for the surrounding neighborhood.
The Loblaws Groceteria building was completed in 1928 and received Heritage designation in 2001.
Its adaptive reuse has preserved a remarkable example of Toronto’s waterfront industrial heritage, situating the warehouse as a new community hub.
Loblaws Groceteria Warehouse Adaptive Re-Use has recently been awarded a 2023 Green Good Design Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Neighborhood response was highly positive, reflecting the introduction of high-quality employment, healthy food options, local retail, and services into a community experiencing rapid growth with few such amenities in place.
Certified LEED®Gold, the reborn Loblaws Groceteria warehouse represents a holistic approach to sustainability, combining green building design with adaptive re-use that mitigates the impact of demolition on regional landfills.
It also features programming that reflects the ethos of the “15-minute neighborhood” and supports the long-term health and viability of an urban community.
The warehouse, wedged between Lake Shore Boulevard West and the Gardiner Expressway, was small and ill-serviced by modern commercial standards and lay vacant between 2000 and 2015.
Its structure had been critically undermined by five decades of vibration and stormwater run-off from the Expressway erected in 1960 over the north section of the warehouse.
Beneath the warehouse lay a contaminated landfill and, below the waterline, a fragile 100-year-old trunk sewer.
The land value that financed the remediation of the site and the rebirth of the warehouse was unlocked by the architect’s masterplan, which inserted high-density residential development at the north edge of the warehouse site.
This also established an enriched fully-accessible pedestrian realm wrapping the south, west and north faces of the warehouse.
A 14,852 square meter office pavilion “floats” above the existing building, set back on all sides to allow a clear reading of historic and new-build elements.
The stacked forms reference the waterfront’s industrial vernacular, and the warehouse’s alternating bands of multi-light windows and brick piers are mirrored in the steel brises soleil that bind the pavilion’s transparent curtainwall skin.
The pavilion houses the client’s 1,100-worker digital commerce headquarters, while the heritage warehouse is programmed as a fully accessible center for food, retail, and local services.
Project: Loblaws Groceteria Warehouse Adaptive Re-Use
Architects: architectsAlliance
Client: Choice Properties REIT
Photographers: A-Frame Photography / Michael Muraz Photography
