How Toronto's Distillery District was transformed into the attraction it is today

More than 20 years ago, John Berman and some of his business partners pretended they were scouting locations for a film to tour a collection of Victorian-era industrial buildings in Toronto's east end and got an idea.

Each buildingcould be anart gallery,a restaurant or aperformance space, Berman recalls thinking.

"It all really came togetherthat Toronto could have its own centre for arts, culture and entertainment. And we really developed the whole concept in that first tour," Berman said. "We were extremely excited."

That centre the Distillery Historic District opened 20 years ago this Mondayon May 22, 2003. Berman is the principal of Cityscape Development Corp., which co-owns the district with real estate company Dream.

In 2001, Berman and hispartners purchased the property from a British pension fundfor $10 million.

WATCH |Take a walk through the historic distillery district:

How Toronto's Distillery Historic District has transformed over the years

1 year ago

Duration 2:12

Toronto's Distillery Historic District is celebrating its 20th anniversary on May 22, 2023. But the area didn't always look the way it does now. CBC Toronto spoke with the original owners who won the bid to purchase the space back in 2001.

Ideainitiallymet with skepticism, developers say

Gideon Arthurs remembers the area before the restoration began.

"I grew up in Cabbagetown and we used to come down to the Distillery to freak ourselves out by walking around the empty cobblestone streets," he said.

Arthurs now works as the executive director at the Soulpepper Theatre Company and the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, which is one of the district's original tenants.

"The big difference now is whereas it felt like an island, it now feels like part of the fabric of the city."

Originally,the area was home to the Gooderham & Worts Distillery.

That distillery opened in 1832, according to Jamie Goad, another original owner and principal at Cityscape. Its buildings were designed by a father-son team made up of DavidRoberts Sr. and David Roberts Jr., Goad said.

The oldest Gooderham and Worts building remaining on the site, Goad said, is the Stone Distillery, built in 1859.

When Berman and his partners began work on the reimagined district, he says, manytold them it couldn't workthat a pedestrian-only district notsurrounded by offices or other retail areas wouldn't make sense.

"What we said is, 'We're going to build an area that everyone wants to live around. And then people will follow,'" Berman said.

Actually building that area proved to be a stressful experience.

Goadsaid if another developer bought the site they probably would have spent two or three years planning what they would do with it. But Berman and his partnerswanted to make something happen quickly.

Because of the skepticism around the project, Berman said they wanted to move fast andopen the district all at once. He said if they opened one building at a time, there would have been little reason for the public to visit.

That meant hiring their own tradespeople, who worked through the seasons to restore the buildings in about 13 months.

"No right-minded developer would ever do anything this way," Goad said.

He said they reused as many materials as they could from the site to give it new life, such as taking the wood that used to hold barrels to make windows.

The move was not only environmentally friendly, but also frugal, he added.

"A lot of people actually say that having insufficient funds actually makes good heritage architecture or restoration," he said.

Goad, who is an architect, said the site is an extraordinary example of Victorian-era industrial architecture that's hard to find elsewhere in North America. He said that's a testament to Gooderham and Worts, who invested in the creation of something that's stood the test of time.

"Two hundred years later, we're still looking at it and saying, 'This is incredible.'"

The district will be hosting a 20th anniversary celebration this weekend.