Here’s what Streetcar Developments wants to do to Jilly’s strip club
What it is: A total revamp of the New Broadview Hotel, a 124-year-old Romanesque building at Queen and Broadview best known as the former home of Jilly’s strip club. The renovation plans were first released last year, but this new rendering offers a much clearer view of what’s in store.
Pedigree: Streetcar Developments is an increasingly major player in east-end real estate. The restored hotel is intended as the centrepiece of a new condo community the company wants to build across the street, on a vast parcel of land that currently has a car dealership and some warehouses on it.
Most promising feature: The glass-clad rear addition looks like a surprisingly harmonious fit. Local residents are probably more intrigued by the building’s intended use, though. Streetcar is hoping to lure a restaurant operator to the ground floor, and the rest of the building would be a Drake-style boutique hotel—but not, apparently, an actual Drake Hotel. The people who run the Queen West institution have repeatedly denied any involvement.
Risk factor: The city is in the process of getting a heritage designation for the hotel, which will restrict what the developer can do with the building.
Likely opposition: This is a crowd-pleasing project, but some heritage buffs may not appreciate the change to the facade.
The odds: The project is going before the Toronto Preservation Board on May 28, and things are looking good for Streetcar Developments. City staff are recommending that the proposed alterations to the building be approved, which means they probably will be. Some construction has already begun.
This is a good news story. A beautiful old building, which we now know was literally falling down, will be saved and restored. Not to mention (and I say this without casting aspersions on the most recent previous use of the main floor of the building) that the proposed hotel and restaurant will be a great addition to Queen East.
That building is gorgeous as shown in the artist representation.
Mary Serniak at Jillys strip club? I don’t think so!
wonderful stuffs I grew up around the area behind it and can’t tell you I never went on that side of the street. That place happily degraded women in a family area glad they’re gone and it’s seedy occupants. It will be more for the idle rich but who cares as long as they do their best to save the architecture of this building and give the community jobs and a boost to local economy. I didn’t like the Gladstone either before the changeover and how nice and historically interesting it is. That being said would have made the poky rooms bigger instead of keeping them. Some think Jilly’s was an eyesore me it was only the owners then who did that but I agree the design off of that was sadly unappreciated by them they nearly destroyed it in the process. Kudos to Streetcars for spending the bucks to make this place grander than it ever was.
I wonder if they will give tours once they are done would be nice if Toronto life let us know. Sarah Richardson is a wonderful designer what wonderful things she could do with that place if they hired her.