The Merchandise Building is a classic example of the renowned early 20th-century industrial Chicago School

Chicago school (architecture)

Chicago's architecture is famous throughout the world and one style is referred to as the Chicago School. The style is also known as Commercial style. In the history of architecture, the Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century...

 architectural style

Architectural style

Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...

. It is a loft

Loft

A loft can be an upper story or attic in a building, directly under the roof. Alternatively, a loft apartment refers to large adaptable open space, often converted for residential use from some other use, often light industrial...

 conversion of a historic warehouse

Warehouse

A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...

 located in downtown Toronto

Downtown Toronto

Downtown Toronto is the central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately bounded by Bloor Street to the north, Lake Ontario to the south, the Don River to the east, and Bathurst Street to the west...

 on Dalhousie Street, near the campus of Ryerson University

Ryerson University

Ryerson University is a public research university located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its urban campus is adjacent to Yonge-Dundas Square located at the busiest intersection in Downtown Toronto. The majority of its buildings are in the blocks northeast of the square in Toronto's Garden...

 and the Toronto Eaton Centre

Toronto Eaton Centre

The Toronto Eaton Centre is a large shopping mall and office complex in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, named after the now-defunct Eaton's department store chain that once anchored it. In terms of the number of visitors, the shopping mall is Toronto's top tourist attraction, with around one...

. Built in various stages from 1910-1949 for the Simpson's

Simpson's

The Robert Simpson Company, or Simpsons , was a Canadian department store chain, founded by Robert Simpson. The chain was eventually bought by the Hudson's Bay Company.- History :...

 department store

Department store

A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

, and later owned by Sears Canada

Sears Canada

Sears Canada Inc. is a retailer, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, that operates in all provinces and territories across Canada with a network of 196 corporate stores, 195 dealer stores, 38 home improvement showrooms, 108 Sears Travel offices and a nationwide home maintenance, repair, and...

 after Simpson's demise, the Merchandise Building at over 1000000 square feet (92,903 m²) is one of the largest buildings by floor area in downtown Toronto.

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 occurred in the years 1931-1949, tripling the size of the building, yet still conforming to the clean lines of the original design. The building architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 was Max Dunning of the firm of Burke, Horwood and White. This noted Canadian firm's other work in Toronto includes what is now the Citytv

Citytv

Citytv is a Canadian English language television system owned and operated by Rogers Communications under its Rogers Broadcasting Ltd. division...

 building on Queen Street West

Queen Street West

Queen Street West describes both the western branch of Queen Street, a major east-west thoroughfare, and a series of neighbourhoods or commercial districts, situated west of Yonge Street in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Queen Street begins in the west at the intersection of King Street, The...

 and the Simpsons (now The Bay

The Bay

The Bay is a chain of 91 department stores that operate across parts of Canada. It is the main brand of Hudson's Bay Company , North America's oldest company. It has its headquarters in the Simpson Tower in Toronto. In French, the chain is known as la Baie, short for "Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson"...

) flagship store at the corner of Queen Street and Yonge Street

Yonge Street

Yonge Street is a major arterial route connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. It was formerly listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest street in the world at , and the construction of Yonge Street is designated an "Event of...

. 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 Robert Simpson 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

Water tower

A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....

.

In 1953, Simpsons Limited (the holding company for The Robert Simpson Company Limited [or Simpson's]) joined forces with Sears-Roebuck & Co. of Chicago in forming a 50/50 ownership in a new company, Simpsons-Sears Limited. The new firm took control of Simpson's catalogue and mail-order business and would open new Sears-style department stores in markets not already served by Simpsons. It was seen as better suited to take on competition with the strong T. Eaton Co. catalogue business and to use Sears marketing principles to expand into smaller Canadian rural and suburban markets.

The Toronto Mail Order Building complex - which eventually came to be known by the less cumbersome name of "the Mutual Street Building", continued to serve the needs of Simpsons-Sears. In 1971, the complex was connected to the department store chain's new head office building at 222 Jarvis Street.

In January 1979, the venerable Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) bought Simpsons Limited in a hostile takeover, following a stalled (by the Foreign Investment Review Agency)and subsequently failed merger attempt between Simpsons and Simpsons-Sears. Simpsons-Sears continued to operate on its own, out from under its former parent, until 1984, when its name was changed to Sears Canada Inc. In 1991, HBC retired the Simpson's brand, either merging the remaining (Toronto-area) stores into the Bay banner or selling them off to Sears, depending on the location.

The Sears catalogue business continued after the Simpsons sale to HBC and Sears Canada continued to use the Mutual Street Building as a warehouse until the 1990s, before moving out and consolidating all its GTA catalogue operations at new distribution/warehouse logistics centres in Belleville and Vaughan, ON. Sears then sold the Mutual Street property for loft development.

Conversion

Happily at the same time the new mayor of Toronto, Barbara Hall

Barbara Hall

Barbara Hall is a Canadian lawyer, public servant and former politician. She was the 61st mayor of Toronto, the last to run before amalgamation. She was elected mayor of the pre-amalgamation City of Toronto in 1994, and held office until December 31, 1997...

, 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 Cresford Developments. The project was one of the earlier 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

Cigarette

A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...

 butt into one of the old freight elevator

Elevator

An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

 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 is a green roof

Green roof

A green roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and drainage and irrigation systems...

 and coated windows to reduce energy loss. Other environmental upgrades include a "Tri-Sorter" recycling chute that accommodates 3 types of waste. The entire building is wired with fibre-optic cable, has a rooftop pool, patio, and dog-walking area, and all the usual amenities in a large condominium

Condominium

A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...

, plus some unusual ones including a 4-story interior lobby and indoor half-basketball court. 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 variations. Notable interior features include 8 feet (2.4 m) sliding barn doors, 12 feet (3.7 m) ceilings with exposed duct work and support pillars with capitals, and ten foot windows. The ground floor of the building is retail, anchored by a 24-hour supermarket.

When it was finally completed in the late 1990s, the project garnered several awards including a commendation from Heritage Toronto and awards from the Greater Toronto Home Builders Association. The conversion even pleased the notoriously critical architecture writer for the Toronto Star

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

, Christopher Hume, who gave the project an "A". The Merchandise Building was one of the first large redevelopment projects east of Yonge Street, and has sparked other projects in the area such as the conversion of the Toronto RCMP Building

Toronto RCMP Building

The Toronto RCMP Building was the headquarters to the RCMP "O" Division detachment in Toronto. The unique glass front and brown sided building is located in the downtown core. The building featured a vault in the basement...

 into a luxury hotel, the old CBC

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

 building on Jarvis Street into condominiums and the new headquarters of the National Ballet School, and the plan of opening a hypermarket

Hypermarket

In commerce, a hypermarket is a superstore combining a supermarket and a department store. The result is an expansive retail facility carrying a wide range of products under one roof, including full groceries lines and general merchandise...

 in the storied, but now vacant, Maple Leaf Gardens

Maple Leaf Gardens

Maple Leaf Gardens is an indoor arena that was converted into a Loblawssupermarket and Ryerson University athletic centre in Toronto, on the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Church Street in Toronto's Garden District.One of the temples of hockey, it was home to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the...

.

External links

Sears Canada History:

• http://www.sears.ca/gp/browse.html/ref=sc_bb_l_0/002-9868190-0159257?ie=UTF8&node=16398881&no=16398901&searsBrand=core&me=A10FHFRJZ0GJG3