Toronto Star

Welcome to the new College St. Right now much of it is an impassable mess, but major changes are on the way. By the time the dust settles, an important but increasingly shabby artery will have been remade as one of Toronto's most attractive thoroughfares. Well, almost. New College St. will extend roughly from Bay to Bathurst, no further. The epicentre of development is at the corner of University Ave. West and east of this intersection, one of the most significant in Toronto, big things are unfolding. On the northwest corner, the University of Toronto's Leslie Dan Pharmaceutical Building is well under construction. Designed by the U.K.'s leading architectural export, Norman Foster, the medium-rise glass tower rises from the former site of the U of T greenhouses. (They have been moved to Allan Gardens.) Though still wrapped in heavy-duty plastic sheeting, it's clear Foster's building will anchor an intersection beset by contradiction.