My take is the title of this thread should read 66s
AG, in our thread titles we do not list the number of storeys as shown on elevator buttons, which have skipped '13' for years and are not often skipping the 4s, but we show the actual number of habitable floors, (so, not including the mechanical-only floors).
…at least that's what we have been doing. A couple of years ago, however, I learned that it was not that simple in all cases. The Four Seasons was the first to make it tough, and Trump confirmed that some buildings simply won't fit that mould.
The Four Seasons was the first that I ran into that had a fully mechanical floor or two in the middle of the building which are totally ignored in the elevator buttons. IIRC, there's a floor immediately atop the podium in between the 9th and 10th floors. Do we count that? The elevators don't, and no-one lives on it, but it is a floor. In the end, we didn't. Same thing where the building switches from hotel suites to condo suites. There's also mechanical at the top of course. Some sites may count the Four Seasons as 55 storeys (skyscrapercity.com), we show 52 (as does skyscraperpage.com).
With Trump it got more complicated when not just mechanical was involved, but another floor popped up, a mezzanine in the Stock Restaurant that doesn't get counted, although the public accesses that one daily. No-one seems to include it in the total floor count.
Here it's even more baffling, at least to me, and I'm going to attempt to illustrate that below.
I started with the City's Zoning By-Law Amendment resulting from the application.
On page 28 the background file states 57 storeys, 198 metres.
When Canderel started saying 66 storeys, I looked a little harder, and then made phone calls to both Canderel and the Planner.
Canderel told me the 13th and the 4s were skipped. The Planner told me that the number of floors don't matter, what matters is the total height and the total square metres/feet of space. So, that made me confident enough of the 57 storey number in our thread title.
Now that the marketing is underway, a pile of more questions were raised because the amenity up top is described as being the 64th storey. So, they aren't skipping all the 4s. I asked again. Canderel now say it's just 4, 13, 14, and 44 that they are skipping. I decided to check out the elevations in the zoning by-law background file. It shows 60 storeys plus 2 or 3—let's say 3—mechanical storeys up top. 2 of the 3 mechanicals include resident-accessible amenities. It also shows a mezzanine just above ground level. So maybe the building is 62 storeys, or 63, or maybe 64. Whichever of those is correct, 66 is just marketing.
There's another reasons why I can't decide if it's 62, 63, or 64: renderings of the podium, (not legal documents), elevations of the whole tower (not legal documents, but supporting legal decisions), marketing descriptions for amenities, and finally what I have been told by Canderel, simply do not all mesh together. I have tried to lay out the confusion in the illustration below.
So, I'm re-numbering the title to reflect 63 storeys, reflecting a compromise of sorts.
In the end though, I think I'll go with City Planning and say that the number of floors doesn't matter, and just worry about the total height here: 198 metres. Whatever fits between that height and sidewalk level is just details.
