The Powell Building’s location northeast of Dundas Square is challenging: separated by a tiny triangular parking lot from a chronically traffic-choked bend of Dundas Street East, with a 10-storey Toronto Public Health building and a safe injection site behind it and, to the east, gloomy, unfriendly Victoria Street Lane that connects Ryerson University to the north with Massey Hall to the south. Five design charrette teams transformed those challenges into an array of opportunities.

Team 1: Connect 38-40 Dundas St E. with the Toronto Public Health building that is attached to it, making 38-40 Dundas St E. an extension of the Toronto Public Health building and the new face of it.

Team 2: Retain as much of the façade of the original building as possible, add an extension to increase size, and organize programmes at the interior that allow for community engagement.

Team 3 (the winning team): 38-40 Dundas East has the potential to restore a human scale to a corner of ”super-human” Yonge-Dundas Square. Enclose the east façade and parking lot in glass to create an interior park through which the building remains visible. Inside, a food hall, with café, bar and green roof respects and enhances the historic building. Revitalize Victoria Street Lane by adding welcoming neon signs that pay homage to the neon signs previously in the area.

Team 4: Transform 38-40 Dundas St E. into a public space with minimal intervention. The triangular parking lot becomes a park with benches that local artists are invited to decorate.

Team 5: Transform the interior of 38-40 Dundas St East.into a community space for community use with programming similar to that provided by a library, while keeping the exterior of the building (including its white paint) relatively untouched.

See also: Charette summary by NextGen Vice-Chair Loryssa Quatrociocchi and NextGen Secretary in NOW magazine: Future of Yonge-Dundas fixture remains in a state of disarray