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A PR IL 2016 | 79 CF Sherway Gardens (North Expansion) PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOUBLESPACE PHOTOGRAPHY/COURTESY DIALOG; XEROFLOR CANADA CF Sherway Gardens (North Expansion) by ROBIN BRUNET L ike any public facility, indoor retail malls occasionally need to be upgraded to avoid losing patronage, and the massive CF Sherway Gardens is no stranger to facelifts. It was originally opened as a figure S shape in 1971, then reconfigured to a figure 8 and subsequently adorned with halls to the north and south. But considering consumers' appetite for upscale is keener than ever, Sherway's owners, Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited, realized in 2012 that the time had come for a three- phase renovation and expansion that would outdo all past transformations. In order to attract new tenants such as Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as accomplish the upgrades with minimal disturbance to shoppers, heavy hitters in the design and construction fields were required: namely, DIALOG, GH+A Design, and PCL Constructors Canada Inc. PCL project manager Jason Rupert, whose company was retained early in the design process, calls the first two phases of the Sherway project: "A big piece of a monster enormous jigsaw puzzle. Not only did we have to figure out how to minimize interruptions with our upgrades, other challenges included a limited amount of space for material delivery." DIALOG principal and project architect Jim Anderson says, "We first got involved in the project in 2011 and there were four main goals for the expansion: provide additional space which would meet the needs of contemporary, high- end retailers; build on the sense of place that exists at Sherway and is clearly expected by today's shoppers; provide convenient parking for clients of the shopping centre; and create a new face for Sherway which engages the urban condition that continues to evolve along the Queensway." Phase one of the project, which was completed in September of 2015, required a new 24,000-square-foot flagship Harry Rosen; a relocated 38,000-square-foot Sporting Life; a completely renovated 225,000-square- foot Hudson's Bay; and reconfigured space for 50 new stores. A crowd- pleasing showpiece of this phase would be a new 1,200-seat Gourmet Fare to replace Sherway's previous food court. Anderson says that one of the main challenges of the expansion was to ensure that it is active and vibrant, both in the way it is experienced on the inside as well as the way it presents itself to the exterior: " The new food hall with its large exterior windows towards the street to the north and its overlook onto the mall to the south was a key part of creating this vibrancy." Anderson adds that creating a high- end retail space is all about place- making. "The space needs to be bright, dramatic and uplifting. The retailers need the opportunity to define their storefronts in a robust way, with height and clear presence," says Anderson. Accordingly, DIALOG designed the new corridors at Sherway to be unusual in their proportion. "They're very tall for their width – almost cathedral like," says Anderson. A vaulted skylight running the full length of the corridors would enhance this ambiance. But if the upgrades were exciting to design, they were difficult to execute. "Most of the renovation was done at night, and even the expansion portions of the project had to be done either in the early morning or late evening so as not to disturb shoppers," says Rupert. For the upgrades, PCL built platforms throughout the mall. "They enabled us to work on the new ceiling, and during the day the shoppers merely walked underneath the structure to get to their stores," says Rupert. Cadillac Fairview also determined that the mall would be capped by a green roof on the new north wing; the owners and DIALOG selected the Xeroflor XF301 Sedum Standard green roof system to cover 102,000 square feet of space (which, incidentally, reduced the required sizes of the property's underground cisterns from the original specifications). This became the largest living roof on a free-standing commercial structure in the Greater Toronto Area. As for new parking, DIALOG designed three decks adjacent to all of the mall's major entrances; a parking navigation system with red- light/green-light sensors above every parking spot would enable motorists to see at a glance where to go. Although Sherway is typical of indoor malls in that it is surrounded by parking, Rupert says, "This parking is for shoppers, not us, so we were constantly shrinking our fencing whenever we could to accommodate them, and our site work was done in phases." At peak, 220 people worked on the renovation and expansion. The mall's east phase, set to open in the spring of 2016, will include a 132,000-square-foot, three-level Saks Fifth Avenue location. The final phase of the project, set to open in mid-2017, will involve the demolition of the mall's former Sporting Life to make room for the 38,000-square-foot Nordstrom with 17-foot-high ceilings, and the rearrangement of smaller retail outlets, stairways and escalators to provide clear sightlines towards the new Nordstrom from the mall's centre court. Several two-level retail spaces will flank the new hallway leading towards Nordstrom, and PCL will rework the mall's iconic teflon- coated stretch-fabric roof into the new south hall configuration. But even though Sherway is a work in progress, it's already a model of collaborative effort. "I think the way in which the owner, design team, and builder worked on this project set a new standard for collaboration. The best interests of the project drove every discussion, and everyone was always looking for ways to get things done well rather than find reasons things could be considered difficult," says Anderson. Wayne Barwise, executive VP, development for Cadillac Fairview, summarized the massive upgrades when phase one was unveiled last September by stating, "Cadillac Fairview is cementing its position as offering cutting- edge retail destinations, and the CF Sherway Gardens North Expansion demonstrates just that." A LOCATION 25 The West Mall, Etobicoke, Ontario OWNER/DEVELOPER Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited ARCHITECT DIALOG CONSTRUCTION MANAGER PCL Constructors Canada Inc. STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT exp MECHANICAL CONSULTANT TMP Consulting Engineers ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT Hammerschlag + Joffe Inc. INTERIOR DESIGN CONSULTANT GH+A Design TOTAL SIZE 210,000 square feet (retail expansion) 1.25-million square feet (total retail space) TOTAL COST $550 million (all phases) 11:59 AM 2:51 PM

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