Steps west of the site of the much-anticipated mixed-use project 'The Well', Lifetime Developments has proposed a 16-storey mixed-use building for the southwest corner of Wellington Street West and Draper Street. As proposed, the Wallman Architects-designed 485 Wellington Street West would feature 541.5 square metres of retail space on the first two levels fronting Wellington Street West and 14 levels of residential units above.

East view, 485 Wellington Street West, image retrieved from the City of Toronto

The site is currently occupied by a single-storey brick office building fronting Wellington with a surface parking lot wrapping around the north and south sides of the building. The parking on the north side of the building is situated on a City-owned boulevard that is also used for surface parking in front of several properties along the south side of Wellington, while the City-owned stretch on the north side of Wellington features landscaping. The eventual aim here is to remove parking from the boulevard and landscape the south side as well, creating a grand, tree-lined pedestrian-friendly street. Lifetime's building, like the buildings of The Well, would advance that plan. 

South west view, 485 Wellington Street West, image retrieved from the City of Toronto

The proposal calls for a main volume rising 11-storeys along Wellington Street West, with stepbacks on levels 12 through 16. The terraced massing is intended to give the development more of a mid-rise scale on Wellington, while conforming to the 45 degree angular plane which the City requires so that ample sunlight reaches the sidewalk on the north side of Wellington.

West elevation, 485 Wellington Street West, image retrieved from the City of Toronto

485 Wellington Street West is proposed to bring 136 residential units to the neighbourhood, with a mix of 77 one-bedroom and one-bedroom plus den units (56.7%), 28 two-bedroom units (20.6%) and 31 three-bedroom units (22.8%). In addition, the proposal calls for approximately 380 square metres of indoor amenity space and 328 square metres of outdoor amenity space on the second floor of the building.

485 Wellington Street West, image retrieved from the City of Toronto

We will return with updates as new information about this development becomes available. In the meantime, additional renderings can be found in our dataBase file for the project, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum threads, or leave a comment using the space provided at the bottom of this page.