Public Notice

Take notice that Toronto City Council stated its intention to designate the lands and buildings known municipally as 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act.

Reasons for Designation

The properties at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street are worthy of designation under Part IV, Section 29 of the Ontario Heritage Act for their cultural heritage value, and meet Ontario Regulation 9/06, the provincial criteria prescribed for municipal designation under all three categories of design, associative and contextual value.

Description

The properties at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street are located in the proposed King-Spadina Heritage Conservation District (HCD), and are identified as contributing properties in the King-Spadina HCD Plan (2017).

Located on the east side of the street between Adelaide and Richmond streets, the properties at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street contain a row of two pairs of 2½-storey house form buildings that date to 1881 in the King Spadina HCD Plan (2017). All of the subject properties are also listed on the City of Toronto's Heritage Register (2017).

Statement of Significance

The properties at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street have cultural heritage value for their design as residential buildings with Gothic Revival styling associated with the first wave of development in the King-Spadina neighbourhood in the 19th century. These row houses represent a key building typology in King-Spadina, which originated in the 1800s as a residential and institutional enclave where the side streets and many of the main streets were lined with detached, semi-detached and row houses. The subject properties survived the replacement of much of the residential building stock during the second phase of development of the community in the 20th century when King-Spadina became Toronto’s industrial centre. The buildings at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street are distinguished by their late Victorian designs with Gothic Revival styling, particularly the centrally-placed gable on each pair with their decorative wood bargeboard.

The properties at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street are valued for their association with the local builder/speculator, Francis Phillips, who built the subject properties along with the abutting heritage property directly to the north at 145 Portland Street.

Contextually, the properties at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street are valued for the role of these residential buildings in defining, supporting and maintaining the historical character of the King-Spadina neighbourhood, reflecting its evolution from a 19th-century residential and institutional enclave and Toronto’s manufacturing centre in the 20th century, to its current status as a mixed-use community. The row houses at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street are historically, visually and physically linked to their setting in the King-Spadina neighbourhood where they are among the small group of surviving late-19th century residential buildings, including the adjacent examples at 124-130 Portland, which are also included on the City's Heritage Register.

Heritage Attributes

The heritage attributes of the buildings at 139, 141 and 143 Portland Street are:

   -         The setback, placement and orientation of the buildings on the east side of the street between Adelaide and Richmond streets

   -         The scale, form and massing of the 2½-storey rectangular shaped plans

   -         The cross-gable roofs covering the buildings, where each pair has a central gable on the west slope with brackets and decorative wood bargeboard

   -         The materials, with the red brick cladding, the contrasting buff brick detailing for the string course beneath the west rooflines and on the window openings, and the stone and wood trim (the brickwork is currently painted, apart from the building at 139 Portland Street)

   -         The principal (west) elevations, which are designed as mirror images with the main entrances placed side-by-side in segmental-arched surrounds with transoms (the open porches on the buildings at 141 and 143 Portland are not original)

   -         On the west elevations, the single-storey bay windows with the segmental-arched openings and the roofs, the segmental-arched window openings in the second stories, the single round-arched attic opening under the cross-gable in each pair, and the brick segmental arches and stone sills

Note: The side (south) elevation at 139 Portland adjoins the neighbouring building. No heritage attributes are identified on the rear (east) elevations

Notice of an objection to the proposed designation may be served on the City Clerk, Attention:  Ellen Devlin, Administrator, Toronto and East York Community Council, Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen Street West, 2nd floor, Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2N2, within thirty days of this notice which is November 30, 2019. The notice of objection must set out the reason(s) for the objection, and all relevant facts.