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In 2012, developer Neilas submitted a rezoning application to the City of Toronto for a site at 263 Adelaide Street West. The site in the Entertainment District has the 5-and-a-half-storey tall Purman Building on it—a 1915-built designated heritage warehouse office building—and is on a block dense with redevelopment proposals. The developer and the City have been discussing redevelopment of the site and the block at large for the past several years, and recent documents prepared for an upcoming City Council vote recommend acceptance of the most recent plan, prepared by Quadrangle and heritage specialists ERA Architects for developer Storey Living.
The new plan is for a 47-storey faceted tower with an irregular floorplate, notched a the southwest corner to maintain separation distances recommended in Toronto's Tall Building Guidelines from Pinnacle International's adjacent PJ Condos, now under construction.
Originally scheduled for a five-day hearing in June at the Ontario Municipal Board—the developer had appealed the City's failure to make a decision on the proposal within the required 120-days—instead, as the City and developer had settled on plans in advance, the OMB was presented with the settlement which it has approved pending planning technicalities being finalized over the coming weeks.
263 Adelaide West will retain and incorporate the Purman Building's walls. (The blank west wall of the Purman Building will be hidden from view by PJ Condos: the podium of PJ Condos has been designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects as an extension of the Purman Building, with a complementary massing and complementary materiality.)
Above the Purman Building, now acting as the tower's podium, 263 Adelaide West will rise to 156.9 metres, including the mechanical penthouse, and contain a total of 353 residential units. Among them will be twelve replacement rental units, offsetting the loss of existing units in the Purman Building, including four studio units, two one-bedroom units, three two-bedroom units, and three three-bedroom units. These replacement units will take the form of live/work studios, and will be located behind the lower levels of the heritage facades.
Below ground, the project will be served by a five-level parking garage containing 123 vehicle parking spaces in a mix of 106 residential parking spaces, 11 visitor parking spaces, and 6 car share parking spaces. A bike parking facility will be located on the second floor.
Additional information and information can be found in the project's database file, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum thread, or leave a comment in the field provided at the bottom of this page.
