Toronto Massey Tower Condos | 206.95m | 60s | MOD Developments | Hariri Pontarini

I think the best part about this project is just that the original building will be used. It will really help eliminate the problems we see at street level with many other developments. In fact, I've almost reached the point that what it looks like above street level is irrelevant.
 
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It's really a no brainer to keep the heritage building for obvious reasons.
It's a stunning piece of architecture and history, and altering or demolishing any part of it would create such an uproar with the public and a PR disaster.

I agree with all that the residential tower shouldn't be neccessarily an extension of the historic bank building. A simple modern tower would be very appropriate.
What matters most is how it looks at street level.

What is the other historic bank building to the north being used as?
It looks restored, but every time I pass by it it's always empty with no sense of activity.
 
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metroTO said:
What is the other historic bank building to the north being used as?
It looks restored, but every time I pass by it it's always empty with no sense of activity.
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It belongs to an absentee owner from Ireland. Apparently, he saw it after the City had spent a not-so-small fortune renovating it, and bought it from them. Unfortunately, he has done nothing with it but let it sit empty since then.
 
And if it "looks restored", it's for good reason: its previous tenant was Heritage Toronto.
 
I also don't see anything here to get excited about. Have people's expectations sunk that low that just any ordinary box is considered "stunning"?
 
Chill out. As mentioned multiple times already, this is just a preliminary massing study. The official design and rendering haven't been released yet.
 
From this Toronto Star article that Caltrane brought to my attention:

Designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects, the 60-storey condo tower will use the restored Bank of Commerce as its front lobby. “You walk up the steps, under the columns, and that’s how you enter,” says Switzer, formerly the head of highrise residential construction for Great Gulf Homes.

The heritage building’s restoration and renovation will be overseen by Michael McClelland of ERA Architects Inc., who has quite a job ahead of him, Switzer notes.

“We’re responsible for dealing with 25 years of broken windows and leaky skylights. On the third floor you can bounce on the floors they’re so rotten. In the basement, the whole ceiling looks like it’s about to collapse.

“I feel like we’re rescuing this building,” he says. “You hear so much about demolition by neglect, and this whole building has been neglected. So something had to happen or who knows what the future would have held.”
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The retail component of the project will be located on the property just to the north of the Bank of Commerce building, currently an uninspired park.

To house the retail, architect David Pontarini has designed a transparent glass box that will offer views of the Bank of Toronto building beside it. “The banks are the elements that stand out, with those beautiful classic stone facades,” notes Pontarini. “The base of the tower is pulled back far enough from both the north side of the lot and from 205 Yonge that the south facade of the bank will be opened up and visible.”
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MOD Developments president Gary Switzer has experience incorporating heritage structures into a condo development.

MOD’s most recent project, FIVE Condos, currently under construction at Yonge and St. Joseph Sts., will restore nearly half a block of 19th-century stores and retain the facade of the gothic-revival Rawlinson warehouse on St. Joseph.

Switzer is using the FIVE team again on Massey Tower. In addition to Hariri Pontarini Architects and ERA Architects, Cecconi Simone will be doing the interior design and Janet Rosenberg and Associates is the project’s landscape architect.

“It’s a great team. I feel like a movie producer using my same stars over and over again,” Switzer says. “And what we’re discussing for (197 Yonge) will blow everybody away.”
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