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A resubmission to the City of Toronto of updated plans for the LCBO Lands is bringing to light some changes for the proposal. To be built on land sold to Menkes Developments by the Ontario Government, the site between Lake Shore and Queens Quay and east of Freeland Street was initially proposed for two 89-storey 'supertall' tresidential owers and a 75-storey residential tower in the northwest quadrant of the site, 80-storey and 79-storey residential towers in the northeast quadrant of the site, a 24-storey office tower to acts as the new LCBO headquarters in the southeast quadrant of the site, and a low-rise commercial building and new parkland in the southwest quadrant of the site.
The resubmission contains several changes to the plan, in particular shortening the proposed towers at the northeast corner of the site, and redistributing some mass in the towers at the northwest corner of the site. None of the towers as now proposed would now be considered 'supertalls'.
The LCBO Tower, originally planned at 24 storeys and 600,000 square feet, is now a 25-storey, 763,000 square foot office tower, proposed to rise 385.4 feet/117.45 metres. A Site Plan Approval submission was also made for this building in December, 2016, by B+H Architects, which has not yet been updated.
In the northeast corner of the site, 79 and 80-storey residential towers rising from a retail podium and designed by architectsAlliance (aA) were also submitted for Ste Plan Approval. They are now proposed to rise 64 and 70 storeys, and 716 ft/218.35 m and 755 ft/230.16 m respectively. At the time of the initial submission, despite caution that the architectural expression was not fixed yet, the images of the towers were compared to aA's recently completed Ïce Towers in Toronto's South Core area. The new images now show the towers resembling aA's currently completing Harbour Plaza towers, also a few blocks to the west in the South Core. When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for aA again cautioned that it's "best not to read too much into the submission… it's very early in the process from a design perspective".
In the northwest corner of the site, the same caution about the architectural expression to be chosen for the exterior would still apply, but both the floor plates and renderings indicate that the pair of residential buildings on the north side of the site are planned without balconies. Originally proposed as twin 89-storey buildings, 997 ft/304 m high, the aA-designed buildings are now proposed as a 90-storey, 978 ft/298.13 m tall west tower, and an 87-storey, 949 ft/289.13 m tall east tower. To the south of the gap between the towers was originally proposed a 75-storey, 837 ft/255 metre tall residential tower, which has now grown to a 77-storey, 852 ft/259.7 m tall tower.
While the initial proposal included 358,295 sq m of residential space, the resubmission has cut that to 340,296 sq m, proposing 4,369 housing units. No further breakdown of the suites into size by number of bedrooms is available yet, nor are stats for affordable housing in the resubmission. 1,377 parking spaces are planned for the 4 blocks spilt between 756 residential spaces and 621 commercial spaces. 4,780 bicycle parking spaces are planned over the 4 blocks.
We will be back with more information as planning progresses on the site. More renderings and other details can be found in our database files for the development, linked below. You can get in on the ongoing discussion in our associated Forum threads, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
