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Fueled by the promise of better transit in the near future, safe walkable streets and a bustling retail and restaurant scene, condominiums continue to sell in the thriving Yonge and Eglinton area. Out of the several condominium proposals in the area, Bazis, Metropia and Riocan’s E Condos takes top spot as the most anticipated development planned for the neighbourhood. The ambitious proposal designed by architect Rosario Varacalli calls for 58 and 38 storey condominium towers, which will stand at 642 and 403 feet in height respectively and contain 854 residential units. E Condos will completely transform the northeast corner of Yonge and Eglinton, which for decades has remained the only corner of the intersection to retain its original low-rise character.
We thought it would be fun to compare the renderings of the project with what is actually there now to better gauge how big a change is coming for the area. In some cases we were not able to pinpoint the exact same vantage point for the photograph that each rendering was taken from, but we have come as close as we can in each case. Sometimes that meant manipulating Apple Maps' remarkable 3D imagery of the city (up to date to the Summer of 2012) to approximate the view. The images below provide an illustration of the site and its current built form versus the planned development.
Our first pair of images compare the view from the southwest across Yonge and Eglinton. (We've retouched the image above with red glass for the pool: it was accidentally missing in the rendering.) Below you can see the two-storey high buildings now at the corner which E Condos will replace.
The next set of images is from one block north along Yonge.
The closest we can get to the view above, is the following angle from Apple Maps:
In that image you can better see that a number of the shops and restaurants along this stretch of Yonge will not be touched by the development. In the stitched panorama visible below, all properties from the ‘Kitchen Stuff Plus’ (located right of centre) all the way to the corner of Eglinton (far right) are slated to be taken down, while all properties on the left will be preserved.
Set behind the low-rise Yonge Street storefronts on the northern side of the block, the 38-storey north tower will replace an existing 7-storey, 30-unit rental apartment building at 25 Roehampton Avenue. To adhere to The Rental Housing Demolition and Conversion By-law, the developers have agreed to replace the existing rental units, with affected tenants receiving relocation assistance and being able to return to replacement units in the new building with similar rental costs. In the images below, we compare the proposed redevelopment with the current state of the site.
Back down at Yonge and Eglinton, we are looking closer at how things will change at street level.
The podium for the 58-storey south tower will rise from the northeast corner of the intersection, with frontage facing out towards both streets. The current TD bank branch which occupies the busy corner will be replaced by a new branch located at roughly the same location in the new building.
The completed development will feature underground connections to the new Eglinton Crosstown LRT line and Yonge subway, as well as RioCan’s Yonge Eglinton Centre, which is currently undergoing a $100 million modernization. Below we compare renderings of E Condos' proposed subway entrances (with the rose-coloured glass) and the current streetscape.
Few projects in the city today are this ambitious. We are looking forward to the next steps here! We have no comparison for the image below, as we don't have a double-decker bus plying Eglinton these days, but it's a good image to end on.
We will be sure to return with updates as more information about this much-anticipated project becomes available. In the meantime, additional information including project facts and renderings can be found in our dataBase file, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum threads, or voice your opinion in the comments section provided at the bottom of this page.
