The more than 100-year-old brick building at 60 Atlantic Ave. was facing near-certain demolition when Hullmark Developments bought it. President Jeff Hull saw in the Liberty Village property a good candidate for his new strategic focus on design, urban growth and renewal, and specifically, renovating character buildings. He tapped Quadrangle Architects to transform the heritage building into office and retail facilities that would attract creative and tech industry tenants.
Tasked with delivering old building character without old building issues, Quadrangle cleaned the original brick and wooden beams and gutted the interiors to make room for modern systems and open up the floor plan. Where previous windows or voids were filled in, the architecture team introduced new materials.
“Whenever there was an existing opening that we bricked up, we bricked up with a different brick so you could see the memory of the building,” said Richard Witt, principal, Quadrangle.
Witt doesn’t consider himself a preservation specialist. Rather than adopt a mantra of “preserve, preserve, preserve,” his approach was to preserve some parts, remove other parts, and add new parts. The resulting architecture tells a story of the now 43,000-square-foot building’s various iterations over the years — from St. David’s Wine Grower’s Co. in 1898, to Eaton’s Department Store warehouse in 1922, to Artscape artist studios in the 1990s.
“As you look at the building, you can see the layers of progression,” said Witt. “That was the building, that was the addition, that was the next bit, that was the next bit, that was the next bit.”
Quadrangle essentially made three big decisions that shaped the building’s adaptive reuse.
The first big decision, Witt said, was to add a piece that connected the original building to an adjacent L-shaped building previously connected by a carriageway. The modern addition features a combination of clear vision, frosted and spandrel glass — installed to look near seamless — and Corten fins, whose rust colour has an aged yet contemporary appearance.
Notably, the new piece was used to provide a gently sloped ramp entrance to the building alongside its original entrance, which is half a dozen steps above grade.
“We insist on being very accessibility positive, so it was very important to us, even though this was an existing building, to bring that in,” he said.
The second big decision, said Witt, was to excavate the basement, which jutted out beyond the building’s above-ground footprint, and create a sunken courtyard. Hull envisioned the courtyard becoming an outdoor beer garden. Big Rock Brewery, the building’s most recently signed tenant, is due to bring that vision to life.
The third big decision, said Witt, was to enhance connections to the street. Before, the building only had one Atlantic Avenue entrance. Now it has the second, accessible Atlantic Avenue entrance as well as a connection to Jefferson Avenue on its west end. Plus, the building has a glass-front space that will house a bar facing the neighbourhood’s namesake Liberty Street. Also adding to the building’s Liberty Street presence is an oversized “60” painted by artist Pascal Paquette on its south façade.
Completed in November 2014, the revitalized building is already home to tenants Regus, a company that provides office space, meeting facilities and business lounges, and INVIVO Communications, an interactive agency serving the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
Quadrangle’s interior design team also handled the tenant fit-up for INVIVO Communications, whose second-floor space organizes window-adjacent open-plan workstations and wall-lining glass-partitioned offices opposite each other across a generous corridor. The minimalist design pairs the exposed brick and wooden beams with hanging horizontal lights and new flooring.
The adaptive reuse of 60 Atlantic Ave. has set the example for Hullmark’s new strategic focus. Currently, Quadrangle is collaborating with the development company on a few similar projects, including 545 King St. W., where the architecture firm is remaking a squalid service lane into a grand processional entrance.
Michelle Ervin is the editor of Canadian Facility Management & Design.
Photo by Ben Rahn/A-Frame.
