Canadian City Proposals II

[O-tacular]

That expansion is a bit controversial since it is replacing centre city park space and the last legacy Olympic feature DT. They’ve hardscaped all of the grass space and knocked out many trees. I don’t mind the building design though.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

That expansion is a bit controversial since it is replacing centre city park space and the last legacy Olympic feature DT. They’ve hardscaped all of the grass space and knocked out many trees. I don’t mind the building design though.

Yeah. When I first saw the proposal, I didn't know where it was exactly. I was surprised to see they'd take a chunk of Olympic Plaza for this. And Downtown Calgary isn't particularly green (nor are most Canadian Downtowns), so the loss of so many trees is regrettable.

But yes, very nice design for the Arts Commons expansion.

[MonkeyRonin]

9 Shortt Street. A CreateTO project, designed by Montgomery Sisam Architects at Eglinton & Dufferin in Toronto. 41-storey tower and 6-storey midrise rentals:

[zoomer]

Very nice, Toronto is going all crazy with colour lately - so nice to see. Are those true to life colourings in the rendering? I mean I guess so, but I don't think I've seen buildings with solid deep pastels like that. What's the rest of the highrise looking like? If these were in cities outside of the big three we'd be celebrating for weeks I think, lol. Toronto does mid-rises better than it does highrises, which is not an insult.

[James Bond Agent 007]

It's not easy being green.

[zoomer]

/\ Well I'll be damned.. that's where I've seen ALL of those colours before, The Muppet Show! The green one can be nicknamed The Kermit.



source

[zoomer]

Now for something less colourful in downtown Victoria. This reminds me of True Viking's Winnipeg building, not in the design, scale or intended use, but more so how to approach a corner lot in terms of massing and work to get city approval. TV's has already gained that, this one a few years ago wouldn't have had a chance in Victoria but there is such a need for housing and this is a good proposal that I'm hopeful it flies through what is now a very pro-housing council. It'll be three buildings and yes one of which will be one of the city's tallest buildings, but it's really not obnoxious and replaces non-descript and underutilized low level buildings.

Images and info from Victoria Development Tracker

Pacific Arbour Six by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

A big focus of their plans and letter of submission are focusing on the benefits of the massing and showing that this will hardly be a precedent for the area:

Broughton, Quadra, Fort Massing Study - May 2025 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Broughton, Quadra and Fort Proposal - May 2025 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr


"The project envisions a precinct with three independent buildings that share an underground parkade while expressing their own distinct but related design personality. The program for this new application includes 329 new homes in addition to a second floor childcare and ground floor commercial space. The homes are divided into approximately one third rental (55+ active aging), and two-third family and work forceoriented strata. Significant open, plaza space is proposed between the three buildings, allowing public pedestrian access and circulation between Fort Street and Quadra Street
and increasing the permeability of the site. The plaza is located between the tower and the Broughton building – accessible from both Fort Street and Quadra Street. Two major commercial units face each other across this space, making them ideal for restaurant or café tenants."


Another proposal for the eastern end of downtown, 1101 Yates Street. I have zero doubts this one will be approved but hopefully with a few design modifications, but the street level looks good. Also, while it's too wide for my liking the horizontal patterns visually break it up a bit into two vertical shapes. Again they are wise to point out the active and planned construction that is all around them. This one also consists of a 5 storey as a nice buffer to the lower buildings to the east of it.

"177 secured rental homes including 20% of suites at
below-market rental rates and 20% fully accessible homes. The inclusive unit mix provides highly livable suites for individuals and families (40% 2-BDR, 10% 3-BDR). Suite layouts are efficient yet generously sized for livability. All suites have private balconies, and the West Building hosts shared indoor amenity spaces and a landscaped amenity roof deck. The Affordable BC Housing Society, a non-profit housing provider, is intended to be the long-term owner and operator of the rental homes.

Employment Use: The purpose-built meeting facility and commercial office spaces are a vote of confidence in Victoria as the centre for employment use in the CRD. They are being built to suit for the BC General Employees’ Union, a top-quality employer who is expanding their Victoria office footprint, enhancing its meeting spaces for its members and re-locating to Victoria’s core from an existing suburban location.

Licensed Childcare: Located at the ground floor of the East Building, the space will provide approximately 12 spaces for infants and toddlers and 25 spaces for 3-5 year old children, with a particular focus on design and supports for neurodiverse children. The landscaped open space fronting onto View Street functions as the entrance court for the families and the licensed outdoor play area."

Jawl Properties - DAU Studio Architects, 1101 Yates Street Proposal on City of Victoria Development Tracker by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Jawl Properties - DAU Studio Architects, 1101 Yates Street Proposal on City of Victoria Development Tracker by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Jawl Properties - DAU Studio Architects, 1101 Yates Street Proposal on City of Victoria Development Tracker by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Jawl Properties - DAU Studio Architects, 1101 Yates Street Proposal on City of Victoria Development Tracker by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

[WhipperSnapper]

The colours are cool. Anything inspired from Central St Giles is a win in my books. The renderings full of happy render people are inspiring as well. Again, it's an overly dense and tall development with the now compulsory minimum requirement of at least one 40 plus storey tower. In reality, those alleys are just going to feel overbearing. CreateTO mandate is bring value to city owned properties. This is peak zoning exercise than firm proposal. The colours decorative facades are highly conceptual.

[Maldive]

Regent Park Buildings 4B + 4C | 128.96m | 39s | Tridel | gh3


UT

UT

UT

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by someone123

Funny.. I was in Toronto recently remarking that it's such a quaint building now, but was a big deal back then. There was a debate about whether or not there would be large-scale highrise construction in the future or the 70's office towers would be the pinnacle. We didn't get bigger and bigger office towers but the condo boom happened.

There was also a sense around the 90's and 2000's from a lot of people that the shift toward the suburbs was permanent. But it turns out that was wrong and I'm not sure it has as much appeal for younger generations. The suburbs are also rough on seniors who lose their ability to drive; the seniors these days are the post-WW2 baby boom generation who associated freedom with vehicle ownership.

Affordability died in Toronto. That's the change. The golden age of the suburban employment growth may be over but, most of what got built in the 1990s and early 2000s has become permanent. There's not a significant reversal or death. There's balance now and indistinguishable development. Proof that building higher and denser is capped at producing better urbanity. That cap being unfortunately higher in Ontario (Canada) with things like transit being tied to return on investment than improving quality of life.

Seniors go where their communities get built and where they get built is a corporate maximizing value decision. The pull of universities on younger people housing can't be dismissed whether it's downtown Toronto with UofT, Toronto Metropolitan University, etc. or York with North York Centre and now Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

[cranes]

https://archive.ph/L0rMa#selection-4687.87-4693.11
Distinctive ‘flatiron’ apartment building to replace Kitchener plaza
The eight-storey building will have 75 units and ground-floor commercial space.

Aug. 22, 2025 - ...The property, at 670 King St. W. on the corner of Louisa Street, has “small and irregular lot dimensions,” explained Dave Galbraith of Up Consulting, on behalf of the site’s owner.
“It’s basically a triangular-shaped lot with a pinch point.”
A number of standard Metrolinx-related conditions will also be in place, as the site is within 300 metres of the railway corridor.
The property currently houses a one-storey commercial plaza with 16 surface parking spots.
It would be torn down and replaced with an eight-storey flatiron-style building, with 75 residential units and more than 2,700 square feet of ground-floor commercial space.
Flatiron-style buildings generally have a triangular footprint and taper to a point at one end.
The development would have five parallel-parking spaces for visitors and will use the existing laneway.
Parking is not required for the project as it stands within a major transit station area; the LRT line runs along King Street in front of the property....

Renderings of a planned apartment building at 670 King St. W. in Kitchener. Joe Somfay Architect Inc.


https://archive.ph/BUczp#selection-3923.26-3969.13
Waterloo developer proposes 54 family apartments after first proposing none
Change to proposed 30-storey highrise follows public feedback.

Aug. 22, 2025 - ...A group of investors proposes to build the highrise at Albert Street and Seagram Drive at the edge of the Wilfrid Laurier University campus. It would replace two houses, one used as an office.
Three versions of the highrise have been placed before Waterloo City Hall since 2023.
The latest includes 54 apartments with three bedrooms (none were initially proposed), 86 apartments with two bedrooms (26 were initially proposed) and 91 studio or one-bedroom units (120 were initially proposed).
Investors changed the unit mix after feedback that included a request for family-sized apartments.
Revisions will benefit the community by providing a range of apartments for residents looking to live close to transit, Waterloo Park and both Waterloo universities, planning consultants for the developer said in a report.
Waterloo city council is scheduled to vote on the proposal Sept. 8. The project requires adjustments to city planning rules such as approval for its height and density and other tweaks....

Rendering of a proposed 30-storey tower at 177-179 Albert St. in Waterloo. City of Waterloo

[cranes]

Downtown Kitchener Fire Station
@ZEBuilder Aug 15, 2025

The City of Kitchener has been looking at building a new fire station in downtown Kitchener for a couple of years now, response times have been below industry standard 43% of the time based on the staff report. Likewise Station 2, the station covering downtown, is the busiest station (approaching 4000 calls a year in 2019) which meant there were situations where it was already responding to a call in its south area of service and then got a call in it's north area which meant stations from further south of it's service area had to respond causing some horrible response times.

Here's the report on the need for a new station: DTK New Fire Station Staff Report

There have been various locations contemplated for the station, for example Vive's 87 Weber project was a location that was contemplated, the rendering on page 14 of the Urban Design Brief for that project still has the rendering with the station, that area is all retail now.

Since then the city has now bought two pieces of land 870 King and 850 King St E for this new station. The intent for the site is to build the station and include housing units on site. The current goal is 150 units of mixed size and income. Some of the money that the city got from the province for exceeding their housing target has gone towards this project. The intent is to have ground broken by the end of 2026.

As for the site itself it is zoned SGA-2 which will allow for an 8 floor building to go onto the site. The site in total is 1.34 acres in size. It did have two buildings on site. In one of the buildings there was a grocery store, it has moved across the street to the ground floor of 387 King St E (no UT thread for this but completed in 2024). The other one that I know about was a AYCE Sushi restaurant that has moved down to the Sportsworld area of Kitchener.

As for the buildings on site they are now demolished and geotech work has occurred.

Site as of August 14th:

[TorontoDrew]

355 Sherbourne | 172.8m | 48s | Kindred Works | KPMB

Just applied for a huge height increase.


source: urbantoronto.ca

The previous design.



And the updated 48s design.

[O-tacular]

Awful. The original complemented the church in scale and how it wrapped around the building. This new version couldn't be a more hamfisted attempt to shove a tower where it doesn't belong. Yuck. So bad it almost looks like Ai.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

Awful. The original complemented the church in scale and how it wrapped around the building. This new version couldn't be a more hamfisted attempt to shove a tower where it doesn't belong. Yuck. So bad it almost looks like Ai.

The original did anything but complement the church. It was boxy and soulless, the complete opposite of the church. The original design looked like it was devouring the church with boxy lines and non-complementary materials.

This new design takes it's cues from the design elements of the church from it's arched windows to the matching brick style in the podium structure.

This one knocks it out of the park imo. I'll take it over that hack job of a first proposal they came up with.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

The original did anything but complement the church. It was boxy and soulless, the complete opposite of the church. The original design looked like it was devouring the church with boxy lines and non-complementary materials.

This new design takes it's cues from the design elements of the church from it's arched windows to the matching brick style in the podium structure.

This one knocks it out of the park imo. I'll take it over that hack job of a first proposal they came up with.

Aside from the arches on the base, the rest of the tower completely clashes with the church and overpowers it.

PS: How is it physically possible for there to be a clear span in the podium supporting the tower with no elevator shaft?

[Nouvellecosse]

Updated design is pretty decent.

[shappy]

Design-wise I prefer the tower version but I don't like the height. It's on the edge of the garden district / Cabbagetown and although I'm not opposed to some development in the area, I definitely don't want it riddled with tall towers. The fact that it would be taller than it's neighbours is a bad precedent. Midrise would be ideal.

Here is the church in context - the streetscape could definitely benefit from a modern addition
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q3a1gorBzSMEhn9N8

[logan5]

That church development is actually decent. The base of the building is slimmed down, and the design actually conforms with the church. The height is a none issue. At street level, you simply will not notice the tower.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

PS: How is it physically possible for there to be a clear span in the podium supporting the tower with no elevator shaft?

Most likely a transfer slab redirecting the tower's weight to the outer supports.