A residential rental high-rise at 66 Isabella Street in Toronto's Church-Wellesley Village is getting a major addition on its east side. Since our last look at the site this past Spring, the building has sprouted several floors above its excavation pit. Owned by Mohican Holdings of Markham, 66 Isabella is a 26-storey rental building that was completed in 1970. For over 42 years the building had a private treed green space on the Church Street side, but that area is now getting a 23-storey addition designed by Quadrangle Architects. 

Looking North-West on Church and Isabella Streets, construction is progressing ,image by Craig White

At the corner of Church and Isabella Streets, the new high-rise will have a total of 212 new units; 196 rental units, 4 townhouse units on the ground floor, and 12 condo units to be located on the top two floors of the building. Retail is being placed alongside Church Street at ground level, and there will be 166 parking spaces underground to serve the residents. The existing tower has 200 rental units.

A closeup view of the construction and fly forms, image by Craig White

The images above show fly forms being placed for the first two tower storeys over the four-floor podium. If you look just above and beyond the construction, you can see the wall of the existing building where cinderblocks were used to create a new wall where the existing building's east balconies used to be. The east-facing units were re-oriented to face north or south.

Looking south on Church, image by Craig White

A look at the construction from the north shows how large the addition will be, and that it will effectively create a slab tower. New slabs are very rare occurrence in Toronto, which only tends to allow point towers now so that shadows are not cast over large areas for long periods. This development was approved by the Ontario Municipal Board, so it is possible that the City was objecting as least partly due to new shadowing.

A closeup of the podium from its south end, image by Craig White

Want to see what 66 Isabella will look like once it opens? You can get more information about the building, and a look at the rendering, from clicking on our dataBase file, linked below. Want to talk about 66 Isabella? Choose the associated Forum thread link, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.