It is a moot point, as we are all guessing about height here, but if the tower is 76 floors including four podium floors of 18-20ft each plus the mechanical/design element it has to be pushing 800ft. (248M)
There is no building in the following 400ft list that is less than 10ft per floor, even the lowly (price point wise)Pinnacle bellies up to bar at 10.32 ft. per floor. Apply that same calculation to 1BE and you get 784ft. Surely 1BE will be of a higher (no pun intended) standard than Pinnacle. As 1BE will have a hotel component all the following building floor counts to height ratio are relevant.
Signature Tower 714 ft. 69 floors
Shangri-La - 704 ft. 65 floors
Four Seasons Hotel - Approx 686 ft. 50 floors
Ritz Carlton Hotel - 684 ft. 53 floors
Sapphire Tower - 643 ft. 62 floors
The L Tower [Hummingbird Centre] - 619 ft. 50 floors
Maple Leaf Square Tower I - 610 ft. 54 floors
Festival Tower - 541 ft. 42 floors
Pinnacle - Northwest Tower - 516 ft. 50 floors
However since the powers that be (developer) doesn't want to reveal the true height due to the inevitable shouts of "TO TALL" and the accompanying gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair by the 45ft crowd we will be kept guessing on a true final official height number until probably close to the construction start next year.
Remember for the longest time the supposed final height of Festival Tower was thought to be 505 ft or so and only last month we discover it’s going to end up 40ft taller.
This all started with FCP. I have a leather bound copy of the original 24 page presentation binder which included assorted renderings, water coloured artist impressions of all the project design elements, streetscapes, and lots of marketing fluff. No where was height ever mentioned. At the public unveiling of the planned development specific height was never talked about. They even announced the tower was 69 storeys. You had to really sift through all the newspaper articles to realize the tower sat on a three storey podium. Upwards of 900ft. was as close as anyone associated with the project would venture to say. That's a long way from 985ft. Toronto has always been afraid of heights.
In closing this post may I say that in the last four years urban forumers in this here old town have been spoiled rotten.
Toronto is emerging from being a provincial rump into a really sophisticated place to live. Yes I know for some it will never be New York, London, Paris, or dare I say it, Vancouver. And for some Toronto's architecture will always be too this or too that or just too not world class.
Yes I know it is our responsibility to be critical and demanding of our developers and urban planners. We must be constantly pressing for ever higher architectural and contextual standards, but please let's stop being so snobish and superior all the time and acknowledge that there is some pretty dam good stuff being built in old T.O. these days.
