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Toronto's increasingly busy Entertainment District will soon grow even more dense, with forming moving along for the podium levels of Greenland Group's King Blue development. Since our last update on the Page + Steele / IBI Group Architects-designed mixed-use project in late 2016, work on the below-grade levels for the 44 and 48-storey condominium towers wrapped up at the southeast corner of King Street West and Blue Jays Way. Now, the 6-storey podium is taking shape, parts of it behind the retained north and west heritage facades of the 1927-built Canadian Westinghouse Building.
King Blue marked a significant milestone back in May, when forming of the complex's ground floor commenced. In the months since, the ground floor and second floor have been poured, and work is now underway on forming of the third floor. The image below shows some formwork for third floor walls in place, and the concrete pump being used to move fresh cement up from street level and into the floor and wall forms. Shoring poles remain in place on the first and second floors while those concrete slabs cure.
The complex will meet the intersection of King Street West and Blue Jays Way with a restaurant space. To the east, a hotel lobby and lounge space will serve as the front door for the development’s 122-room Primus Hotel occupying the north half of the podium. Further to the east, four retail spaces will fill out the rest of the remaining King Street frontage, along with a second restaurant space serving as an eastern bookend. The south side of the podium along Mercer Street will feature two additional retail spaces, as well as the lobby for Theatre Museum Canada, which will occupy a portion of the podium's second floor.
Planning documents submitted to the City in late 2016 build upon the existing renderings of the project, including a list of the cladding materials for the building. Podium levels will sport a treatment of dark grey brick meant to complement the retained heritage facades without competing with them. Glazed areas will be a mixture of clear curtainwall glazing, and window wall system made up of clear glass, grey spandrel glass panels, and silver mullions.
Once complete, King Blue Condos will bring a total of 872 new condominium units and over a thousand new residents to what is rapidly becoming one of Canada's densest neighbourhoods.
You can learn more about King Blue by visiting our database file for the project, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum threads, or leave a comment in the space provided at the bottom of this page.
