Canadian City Proposals II

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

yeah, really, what's up with that?

Maybe the developers are from Chicago and don't want to see Toronto take the crown for the city with the second most supertalls in North America (from Chicago).

That said, I love Chicago's supertalls.

To the best of my knowledge, Toronto has surpassed Chicago in terms of the total number of highrises, but Chicago is still considerably more impressive and beefy on the upper end; that is, taller supertalls, and more of them. I have always loved Sears, AON, and Hancock, all three timeless classics of modernism. But I also love all of Toronto's more modestly sized old MINT buildings, from FCP to Scotia to Commerce Court to the Mieses to Royal Bank South.
There's nothing currently proposed in Toronto that would close the gap at the top (though the beautiful College Park redevelopment is roughly of equal height to AON and Hancock), much less surpass Sears, but there are numerous supertalls or near-supertalls that will fill in the skyline nicely. It's just a matter of riding out the condo crash.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Gresto

To the best of my knowledge, Toronto has surpassed Chicago in terms of the total number of highrises, but Chicago is still considerably more impressive and beefy on the upper end; that is, taller supertalls, and more of them. I have always loved Sears, AON, and Hancock, all three timeless classics of modernism. But I also love all of Toronto's more modestly sized old MINT buildings, from FCP to Scotia to Commerce Court to the Mieses to Royal Bank South.
There's nothing currently proposed in Toronto that would close the gap at the top (though the beautiful College Park redevelopment is roughly of equal height to AON and Hancock), much less surpass Sears, but there are numerous supertalls or near-supertalls that will fill in the skyline nicely. It's just a matter of riding out the condo crash.

Yeah Toronto already had more highrises than Chicago (using the Emporis definition of 12+ stories or 35+ metres) back when i joined the site.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Gresto

I have always loved Sears, AON, and Hancock, all three timeless classics of modernism. But I also love all of Toronto's more modestly sized old MINT buildings, from FCP to Scotia to Commerce Court to the Mieses to Royal Bank South.

Agreed 100%

[Pellimo]

Quebec City, Ste-Foy borough.

12 stories, 276 units, on the site of the Laurier Québec Shopping Center.

[craner]

A new tallest for Victoria gets quashed by council.
The tower reminds me of the Richardson building in Winnipeg.

Victoria council rejects 35-storey condo tower on Blanshard Street
http://https://www.westerninvestor.com/british-columbia/victoria-council-rejects-35-storey-condo-tower-on-blanshard-street-11997975

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by craner

A new tallest for Victoria gets quashed by council.
The tower reminds me of the Richardson building in Winnipeg.

Victoria council rejects 35-storey condo tower on Blanshard Street
http://https://www.westerninvestor.com/british-columbia/victoria-council-rejects-35-storey-condo-tower-on-blanshard-street-11997975

It really does look like the Richardson Building. I like it in Winnipeg in the context of the era, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about a modern version.

In any case, too bad it was rejected. Height isn't always bad in the right spots, and can help preserve other areas.

[zoomer]

Interesting that article didn't more clearly mention the main two reasons for rejection, which was the impact on Victoria Harbour Airport and the fact it's primarily zoned for office space and the residential component far exceeded that. Now plenty of debate on the merits of those two points for sure, but I don't really know anyone that liked the design of the building, aside from the street level which was pretty good.

• Video Link

If you have too much time on your hands you can read my synopsis of the Council meeting here and the project here on MappingVictoria.com.

[zoomer]

In other news, last week Victoria city council unanimously approved a 19 and 6 storey project downtown at 1101 Yates Street.



1101 Yates Street by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr



1101 Yates Street by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

Beyond being another generic investor condo, what is with the weird Toronto trend of having buildings with narrower bases that awkwardly cantilever or balloon out as they rise? I've seen it done in some cases where a historic building is being preserved, but there's been a couple new ones with no such heritage structure at the base. This one has a row of heritage fronts, but I'm guessing that they're just facades. So why even bother with the weird setbacks?

I guess it's to provide separation between the retained facades and towers and is probably encouraged by planning. There's been hundreds of Toronto tower proposals posted here and they are all shoehorned in maximizing human warehousing in their silhouettes. Therefore, there will be a lot of repetition in the generic investor condo designs. I'm not aware of a preponderance of these towers (can't remember your name for them) out of the 1000 of proposals.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by craner

What is it with Toronto towers being just under 300m (FCP, Concorde Sky ?,etc.). Like just add the extra couple of meters.

Concord Sky is 300 metres according to SSP, CTBUH and Urbantoronto and FCP is not actually 298 metres tall. It's a fake number that was copied and pasted over the interweb.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It is odd why so many of Toronto's new tall buildings are at 299 meters. Is this due to some form of arbitrary zoning or fire regulations?

You're referring to proposals and barely proposals at that. They aren't buildings and not very likely to ever become buildings. There's also six proposed supertalls to go with the remaining 299 metre and 297 metre proposals.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Would definitely be more convenient for those on a Viking Cruise, but hard to imagine a business case from either a public or private perspective. From the City's view, the vast majority of those travellers are already going to spending most of their time/money downtown before making the ~10 minute journey to the Port Lands. From a pure cash flow perspective, how much more is Viking going to be willing to pay in whatever docking fees they're charged in order to save their customers that 10-minutes of travel?

I agree. The rendered facility looks to be in the tens of millions at Toronto's inflated construction costs. I can't see the city needed anything of that scale for a very long time. This looks like it could handle 10 times the current number of visitors. In any case, the idea is not a bad one for legacy city building however, even an affordable modest facility is, AFAIK, not needed in a city with lots of needs and limited resources. I'm not entirely convinced 20,000 people with disposable incomes funneling through is enough to command high rents for bric-a-brac shops to pay off the build.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It is odd why so many of Toronto's new tall buildings are at 299 meters. Is this due to some form of arbitrary zoning or fire regulations?

My understanding is that it's much stupider - City Planning staff have a thing about not liking buildings to be taller than First Canadian Place as that creates a scary "new tallest" type precedent. Not all that indifferent to how they held on to a height of 157 metres for the entertainment district for years. There is no policy, building code, or anything holding to that, other than meeting with City Planning staff to discuss a proposal and them scoffing at it.

It's why 191 Bay, Concord Sky, Union Centre, Chelsea Green, 23 Toronto St, etc. all come in around 298-299m.

Interestingly - SSP had for about 20 years listed First Canadian Place at 298 metres in height. This means that most buildings come in right at 298-300 metres or so..

The funny thing is that First Canadian Place is actually closer to 291-292 metres in height. SSP finally corrected the height in the last year or two.. but staff have been using the 298m reference for a while now.

[WhipperSnapper]

Sounds like something our height obsessed community has theorized than have any basis in fact. I've never seen any such reference to FCP in such a way in any planning publication. What I have seen is FCP referenced in planning documents as 287 metres tall (not including the elevator overrun) numerous times as well as FCP being much taller than the Nathan Phillips Square shadowing guide lines allows for surrounding zoning exercises. There's more proposed 300 plus towers than 295 to 299 metre towers too.

Likewise, the Entertainment District. The 157 metre guide line encompassed a few blocks centred around Festival Lightbox surrounded by progressively lower heights to create a height cone which is a popular ideal in planning circle in creating high density and minimizing impact on the feel of the place. The community in part to an overreaching zoning appeals process that with developers has created a table top instead of the cone has turned it into this perceived height limit for the entire neighbourhood

[Innsertnamehere]

There are taller as ultimately City Staff aren't the be-all end-all, and because there isn't actual policy, they don't really have a leg to stand on.

It's one of those things that gets asked of applicants and if it's not a big deal they just comply to avoid having another issue to argue about.

Some applicants want the extra height, so push back. Which is why Pinnacle is building One Yonge to 350+m - but for most applicants, if you want to do a 315m building and staff say "can you make it 299m?", you just do it and focus on bigger issues to avoid pissing them off and making it more difficult to get the things that actually matter.

157m was applied basically to the entire area of the city bounded by Queen, Simcoe, the rail corridor, and Spadina. Staff opposed anything above it zealously until 400 Front was approved through a contested OLT hearing on the matter which basically told the City to back off. The 157m thing was well documented and there is a reason 10-15 approvals all magically came in at 157m in the area at the time. When Mirvish Gehry was approved staff issued a "one time waiver" on it due to the "exceptional architecture" and specifically tied the Gehry design into the zoning by-law in order to secure that..

Staff were quite grouchy about even 157m. They wanted the Entertainment District to be midrise originally - all the condos built in the area pre-Bell TIFF Lightbox were in the ~15-20 storey range. They gave approvals to Lightbox to help fund the TIFF facility, then a flood of applications chased that height.. Staff weren't happy about it. It's similar to how they pushed a 50m height limit from Spadina to Bathurst for years which has only just started to be broken now.. same thing.

The City hasn't been quite as zealous on the 300m thing from my understanding, but it's almost certainly one of those "soft asks" type things where they aren't going to write a refusal report over it but will ask nonetheless. Many applicants comply to shorten the issues list. Of course many blow over it, but if you are in that general ballbark of height, most applicants just round down to avoid issues - which is why you end up with 6-7 applications all within that same height range.

[Maldive]

1315 Finch West | 193.69m | 61s | CTN | a—A l pre-construction

61, 56, 51 & 36 storey mixed-use development in Toronto's York University Heights neighbourhood. Typical a-A minimalist design aesthetic.

Someone over at UrbanToronto mentioned they were getting TD Centre vibes.


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[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Maldive

Someone over at UrbanToronto mentioned they were getting TD Centre vibes.

Yeah, no kidding.

[Maldive]

18 Dalhousie | 200.95m | 61s | Pemberton | Graziani + Corazza l pre-construction

This one’s back now quite a bit taller (200 metre+ benchmark) with additional set-backs responding to hospital flight path issues. It was originally shorter than QueenChurch under construction @ 186m immediately to the south… good luck to residents of QueenChurch with a north “view”.


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[Maldive]

25 St Mary | 204m | 59s | Tenblock | gh3 l pre-construction

Recent re-design that includes some colour (my word ;-). Similar heights and number of residences.


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[Nouvellecosse]

It's nice that the newer design has a warmer colour but I prefer the previous design overall.