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After over two weeks of polling, UrbanToronto readers have selected the best buildings opened in 2016! Our Year-End Readers' Poll ran from December 2nd to midnight on December 20th, raking in almost 1,300 respondents across three categories. A combined 40 new buildings had the chance to get this year's honours, resulting in our three winning projects for 2016.
This year's 40 completed structures were grouped into three categories according to height; shorter ones that we called "WELL GROUNDED": 20-53 metres (12 candidates), middle height candidates referred to as "TALL-ish": 53-105 metres (14 candidates), and the tallest completions as "TALL": 105-200 metres (14 candidates).
WELL GROUNDED
The runner-up from our "WELL GROUNDED" category was DundeeKilmer's Canary District Condominiums, an 11-storey condominium development that rises 36 metres over Toronto's new West Don Lands neighbourhood. With 20.02% of vote, Canary District managed to capture the second place spot, while failing to overtake the winning project's constant lead throughout the polling period.
Our winner in this category is Gairloch Developments and Centrestone Urban Developments Inc.'s architectsAlliance-designed 383 Sorauren Avenue in the Roncesvalles Village neighbourhood. This 10-storey, 33.8-metre condominium building captured 24.80% of vote to take the top spot, edging out our runner-up by less than 5% of the vote.
TALL-ish
The runner-up in our "TALL-ish" category is Women's College Hospital, a project overseen by Infrastructure Ontario and designed by Perkins Eastman Black with IBI Group. Landing 10.49% of vote, this 10-storey, 70-metre-tall medical facility barely edged out third place Canary Park Condominiums by less than 1% of the vote, overtaking the DundeeKilmer project in the last day of polling.
Our "TALL-ish" category was won by First Gulf's Globe and Mail Centre, a 17-storey office building featuring a design by Diamond Schmitt Architects. The 17-storey, 83-metre project took the category by a wide margin, landing 36.77% of vote—an over 25% gap over runner-up Women's College Hospital.
TALL
Our “TALL": 105-200 metres category took in the most responses of the three categories, with a number of major new additions to the city in contention for the top spot. Our runner-up from this category is awarded to Sun Life Financial Tower, a 35-storey, 173-metre office tower by Menkes Developments and HOOPP. The Sweeny &Co Architects-designed building took in 20.18% of vote, only a few percentage points behind the category's winning project.
With an impressive 23.20% of vote, our “TALL": 105-200 metres category was won by Mattamy Homes and Goldman Group's Picasso Condos, a 39-storey condominium tower in the Entertainment District. Standing 129 metres over Richmond Street West and featuring a playful exterior of extruded cubes designed by Teeple Architects, the project's striking exterior pulled ahead early on in the polls, never relinquishing the lead throughout the polling period.
We look forward to another year of new additions to our urban fabric in 2017. In the meanwhile, let us know what you think about this year's winners using the comments section provided below.
