Toronto Leaside Data Centre | 35.43m | 7s | Beeches | Studio Canoo

Northern Light said:
Excluding the MPH here, we've got 33.5M of height on a 6s building.

That's over 5.5M per floor or about 18ft.
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It's tall but not 4.8 to 5m per floor isn't unusual for Office.

Leaving 11 foot ceilings (advertised feature) under a typical office false ceiling with tall (relative to steel) wood beams for floors might requires more height.
 
A piece in the Globe and Mail tips us off that this building has changed.

It's no longer Mass Timber; it's concrete and Steel.

Aesthetically, it's had a notable downturn.

Originally conceived as offices, this will now be a building for Wet Labs.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Plans for a mass-timber building pivot to steel girders and concrete

Leaside Innovation Centre to house wet labs instead of offices
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

Render from the above:

1705418084644.png



The developer moved away from office for the rather obvious reason of market conditions, but had wanted to retain the Mass Timber design originally. But it was deemed incompatible/non-economic with the Wet Labs concept.

From the article:

1705418277047.png
 
Northern Light said:
A piece in the Globe and Mail tips us off that this building has changed.

It's no longer Mass Timber; it's concrete and Steel.

Aesthetically, it's had a notable downturn.

Originally conceived as offices, this will now be a building for Wet Labs.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Plans for a mass-timber building pivot to steel girders and concrete

Leaside Innovation Centre to house wet labs instead of offices
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

Render from the above:

View attachment 533571


The developer moved away from office for the rather obvious reason of market conditions, but had wanted to retain the Mass Timber design originally. But it was deemed incompatible/non-economic with the Wet Labs concept.

From the article:

View attachment 533572
Click to expand...
Good to see others reading the G & M - paper version or electronic (which has a variety of advantages, although not quite the same cachet when also consuming your cappuccino and brioche) Two items found interesting in this article were the quotes on the state of office space rentals in Toronto (even if temporary as noted in the quote) and the pivot to a proposed wet lab building. The requirement for these types of facilities is very strong, supply is very low, but, as shown above in the quote, challenges remain.
 
renx.ca

Beeches proposes new life sciences development in Toronto

A proposed mass timber-constructed office development in Toronto’s Leaside area has shifted focus; Beeches Development is now seeking to add much-needed biomedical laboratory space with its new building.
renx.ca renx.ca

Goldsmith would like to begin construction on the StudioCANOO-designed building before the end of the year.

Goldsmith estimates it will take about two years to complete. He’s willing to build on spec if necessary because he’s confident tenants will come on board as construction progresses and occupancy timelines shorten.

The plan is for the development to be financed with 50 per cent equity and 50 per cent debt, though Goldsmith said he and Schultz will consider adding investment partners.

CBRE is seeking tenants to pre-lease space in the building as well as potential co-investors in the project.

Banks are generally reluctant to finance developments that aren’t pre-leased in today’s economic environment and, since the life sciences asset class is relatively new in Canada, there isn’t a lot of available historical data that may be able to convince them otherwise.

CBRE associate vice-president Daniel Lacey, who authored a report on Toronto’s need for more lab space last fall and is representing Leaside Innovation Campus, told RENX 90 per cent of the potential tenants he’s spoken with don’t have flexible timelines and want to be in new space within 18 months.
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ProjectEnd said:
Given data latency (which is tied to geographic location) is an important metric on these things, I'm not sure how many folks would be interested in a centre this far from the business core for anything except storage.
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Most data centre growth these days is AI driven which from my (non techie) understanding is less latency sensitive. It's more about processing - send the request off, process, and return a few seconds later. A few extra milliseconds of travel doesn't matter for that kind of work.

The pattern of US data centre growth as a result of AI, which has been much, much stronger than in Canada, has been locating them in areas which have the lowest operating costs, regardless of distance from clients. What matters is areas that have low regulatory burden and low electricity costs to operate them. There is still demand for low-latency locations to process key types of info, but a lot of demand growth is less dependent on that.

The data centres of a decade ago are not what are driving demand in 2025.

This site though wouldn't really fit either.. It's an urban location which means high land and regulatory burdens, but it's not really prime enough to have super-low latency either. Maybe more of a "medium latency" spot. Who knows - I suspect the landowner is inexperienced in data centres and is just trying to figure out what to do with the land.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
Most data centre growth these days is AI driven which from my (non techie) understanding is less latency sensitive. It's more about processing - send the request off, process, and return a few seconds later. A few extra milliseconds of travel doesn't matter for that kind of work.

The pattern of US data centre growth as a result of AI, which has been much, much stronger than in Canada, has been locating them in areas which have the lowest operating costs, regardless of distance from clients. What matters is areas that have low regulatory burden and low electricity costs to operate them. There is still demand for low-latency locations to process key types of info, but a lot of demand growth is less dependent on that.

The data centres of a decade ago are not what are driving demand in 2025.

This site though wouldn't really fit either.. It's an urban location which means high land and regulatory burdens, but it's not really prime enough to have super-low latency either. Maybe more of a "medium latency" spot. Who knows - I suspect the landowner is inexperienced in data centres and is just trying to figure out what to do with the land.
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With the Telus Data Centre located down the street it would not be far from a sizeable location. Maybe there is a need for it, or maybe this is just the new shinny thing the owner thinks can be developed there. https://www.urbacon.net/projects-archive/telus-psi-net-data-centre/
 
mikejb said:
Well it looks like they are taking another swing at this project. Now trying to develop a Data Centre.

canada.constructconnect.com

Not just a windowless box: Toronto developer proposes data centre in Leaside - Daily Commercial News

At a time when developers face new challenges with the demand slump in the commercial sector, a Toronto developer is proposing an 87,000-square-foot data centre in a business park in Leaside, Toronto. The seven-floor digital hub, a project by Beeches Dev
canada.constructconnect.com canada.constructconnect.com
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Lets see if I can bring the render forward:

1763575129308.png
 
Thought I would just add a bit of insight here - Poise Dance Academy has recently moved into this spot regarding the demolition at Banigan Drive, (which is currently happening right now) where they were previously located at 16 Banigan
 
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