Canada's 50 Tallest Proposals

[WhipperSnapper]

Monotony? I guess if you are more concerned about material than design. Let's just say we agree to disagree about inserting warmer colours such as reds, oranges and yellows here. It would be nice but, I don't see it being that important. That's about skyline afterall. At street level, you tend to notice more the individual towers. What we don't need is another massive podium for all the towers of a development to sit on.

[yaletown_fella]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Haha oops, I do that surprisingly often... actually my usual type-o is Younge St.

Either way I don't even really know what constitutes an "important intersection", but I know there is no way Yonge & Bloor is the most important in canada... Unless you work for The Bay.

Luckily that Bay store will be toast and replaced with a Saks (and hopefully a new internal mall and mixed use development)

[koops65]

Originally Posted by RyeJay

Where is the logic in that? Since there is construction occurring...there should be density to any degree?

Consideration of the midrises along Queens' Quay and East Bayfront is part of what I'm trying to convey. Even if you ignore the lower-density projects, absolutely none of the highrises in the area along the Gardiner approach the supertall height of 1 Yonge.



There is value, socially, environmentally, and economically, in retaining the human scale of the waterfront where cities should be promoting public use. Relative to the buildings that have been constructed along the lake and the new ones that are going up (which are midrises), these "supertalls" are off the chart by comparison and block out much of the downtown from pedestrians. Waterfront activities become more claustrophobic.

These towers are very jarring -- when that effect has been previously expressed by the CN tower. It would be more appealling if this proposal contributed to the slope of building heights from waterfront to CBD, instead of creating it's own cliff, crowding the waterfront with density similar to the CBD.

This may be true in absolute numbers, but looking at percentages it isn't quite so overwhelming.
One Yonge 1 - 293 metres
Ice Condos E - 234 metres (80% as tall)
Harbour Plaza E - 233 metres (79.5% as tall)
Harbour Plaza W - 224 metres (76.5% as tall)
10 York - 224 metres (76.5% as tall)
45 Bay - last I heard it was to be approx. 244 metres, might end up even taller for all we know (83% as tall)
So, to recap, YES, One Yonge 1 will be taller that all the other towers on that stretch of the Gardiner, BUT, there are several towers nearby with heights not all that much shorter. There could be as many as 5 towers nearby with a minimum height of 3/4 as tall as One Yonge 1. So don't go telling me that this tower will blow everything around it away, in terms of height. Taller? Yes... but only by a bit.

[WhipperSnapper]

20 to 25% is more than a little bit. They are all centre around York Street. Notice the height distribution for Pinnacle Centre.

[RyeJay]

Originally Posted by koops65

This may be true in absolute numbers.

It is!

Not only is the 1 Yonge supertall roughly 25% taller than the other Gardiner highrises but it's immediately beside a district of low and midrises.

This cluster of towers appears out of scale with developments along the waterfront and unfortunately continues of the south core's trend of blue-green glass.

That being said, I do find the tallest tower beautifully designed.

[LeftCoaster]

1 Yonge will not be a supertall, Pinnacle is a mid tier developer and has no interest in the premium involved in building 300+ M, nor the difficulty involved in selling premium units needed to justify the extra construction costs. What they are doing currently, and quite well I might add, is whipping up discussion, excitement and publicity for a development that is likely to become a slightly taller version of the Pinnacle Centre and nothing more. Hype Machine at its finest.

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

Luckily that Bay store will be toast and replaced with a Saks (and hopefully a new internal mall and mixed use development)

Haha did you just quote me from 4 years ago? How did you even find that post?

Anyway we'll wait to see if that Bay becomes a Saks.

[RyeJay]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

1 Yonge will not be a supertall, Pinnacle is a mid tier developer and has no interest in the premium involved in building 300+ M, nor the difficulty involved in selling premium units needed to justify the extra construction costs. What they are doing currently, and quite well I might add, is whipping up discussion, excitement and publicity for a development that is likely to become a slightly taller version of the Pinnacle Centre and nothing more. Hype Machine at its finest.

You may be right. Given the height to which the City has said yes around York St., I have doubts.

[caltrane74]

Still 293 meters is pretty damn close to supertall, and I'll take it.

[Spring2008]

Toronto deserves a Supertall though with all the large scale developments happening there.

[LeftCoaster]

It has a supertall, but yes it could use another.

I don't see 1 yonge ending up 293 M either, it's possible but I bet once all the dust has settled the tallest we see there is ~250.

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by DrNest

Once more I am in agreement with you Gresto. Whilst I would love to see the 300m mark broken, it is unlikely to be at the One Yonge project. If anything, I still think the Oxford twins are our best bet.

That was looking to be our best bet, but the insiders around here seem to think it has been put on the back, back burner, such that it was removed from the diagrams section.

[koops65]

They aren't off the diagrams, just listed as Visions.
http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=62578870

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by RyeJay

There is value, socially, environmentally, and economically, in retaining the human scale of the waterfront where cities should be promoting public use. Relative to the buildings that have been constructed along the lake and the new ones that are going up (which are midrises), these "supertalls" are off the chart by comparison and block out much of the downtown from pedestrians. Waterfront activities become more claustrophobic.

I think everyone agrees that cutting off the waterfront from the public is a nonstarter. 1-7 Yonge doesn't do that, though I will concede that it comes awfully close (landscape plan below). However, this particular stretch of the waterfront is, to be charitable, not particularly becoming or accessible to begin with (Harbour Westin to the west and a couple of parking lots and Redpath Sugar to the east), so having this clutch of big towers there isn't going to detract from a great beach experience, or something similarly recreational.
What I might suggest as a future remedial action is filling in that large slip just south of Yonge and perhaps making it a small waterfront park. Last I heard, Captain John's hasn't paid its taxes in years and is on its last legs.
Also, those parking lots and Redpath need to go, if there isn't already a plan for that. They are the entities directly detracting from a waterfront experience right now.

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by koops65

They aren't off the diagrams, just listed as Visions.
http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=62578870

Which doesn't augur well for them, at least for the near future.

[Boris2k7]

Originally Posted by koops65

They aren't off the diagrams, just listed as Visions.
http://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=62578870

Speaking of diagrams, thanks so much koops for keeping on top of a lot of the proposals going up around the country. I'd like to get back into illustrating at some point, but when I do I'll probably be focusing on the smaller Calgary proposals (for which we have new development permits on hand to draw information from) and older buildings which have simplistic or missing diagrams.

[DrNest]

If anything, the One Yonge towers will add to that area of the waterfront and open it up by bringing more people into the area. It's the stretch east towards Cherry St that really needs major redevelopment to turn the waterfront in to a much more enjoyable experience.

For a city on the lake, Toronto doesn't do enough with the vast amount of water frontage that it has. So much could be done from around Yonge St all the way to Mimico. There are some nice bits, but a lot is truly lacking.

[DrNest]

Originally Posted by Gresto

That was looking to be our best bet, but the insiders around here seem to think it has been put on the back, back burner, such that it was removed from the diagrams section.

I thought I read somewhere that there were plans to reissue renderings of the proposal without the casino in the not too distant future. That would suggest to me that there is still the likelihood of something major happening with the Oxford Twins.

I appreciate that it is still in all probability likely to take ten or so years for the project to get around way with regards to construction, but unless some developer comes in with an actual supertall tower condo proposal, I would still put my bets on the Oxford Twins as our first supertall building. (Personally I count the CN Tower as a supertall, but I know many don't. But that's a whole other discussion...)

[WhipperSnapper]

In regards to the Oxford proposal, nothing was ever submitted and Oxford representatives were quoted that the vision was highly dependant on the market research panning out.

Casino is dead therefore the proposal as depicted is dead. What is reimagined and what is retained remains to be seen. I wouldn't put my hopes on the complete redevelopment to accommodate the supertall towers. IMO, Toronto's first supertall high rise has yet to be seen.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by RyeJay

There is value, socially, environmentally, and economically, in retaining the human scale of the waterfront where cities should be promoting public use. Relative to the buildings that have been constructed along the lake and the new ones that are going up (which are midrises), these "supertalls" are off the chart by comparison and block out much of the downtown from pedestrians. Waterfront activities become more claustrophobic.

These towers are very jarring -- when that effect has been previously expressed by the CN tower. It would be more appealling if this proposal contributed to the slope of building heights from waterfront to CBD, instead of creating it's own cliff, crowding the waterfront with density similar to the CBD.

How do tall buildings "block" the waterfront any more than shorter ones do?

[caltrane74]

I don't think it's possible for Redpath to go. Doesn't all the sugar from Cuba come in to port there? They would have to build a rather large facility on some other part of the waterfront, and it doesn't look like Redpath has any interest at all in moving. They seem adamant they want to stay right there in the middle of downtown.