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Last month’s submission to the City of Toronto of planning documents for the redevelopment of the Newtonbrook Plaza in North York provided a wealth of information on the proposal. Named M2M Condos as a nod to the local postal code, the project that marks Hong Kong-listed Aoyuan Property Holdings' entry into the Toronto housing market, will gradually remake the 8.6-acre suburban shopping plaza on Yonge Street at Cummer Avenue.
We are returning for a closer look at the development after last month’s story touched on the project’s design by Wallman Architects and its scope. Today we’ll look at some of the more technical factors including finishing materials, construction phasing, and improvements to both the local public realm and street network.
M2M's first 34 and 36-storey towers—rising from a shared podium containing a grocery store, other retail, and office space—will be clad in a combination of curtainwall and window wall systems for the primary building envelope. Other materials include prefinished metal cladding panels, aluminum slab edge covers, plus clear glass and refinished aluminum balcony guards. Touches of brick masonry and wood will create a warmer aesthetic for the building's ground-adjacent residential units.
New roads—both public and private ones—will give definition to the site by dividing it into blocks. This first phase will be built at the south end of the plaza site, (north is to the left in the image below), where the plaza's existing 11-storey office tower stands.
A future neighbourhood park, to be dedicated from land currently in use as surface parking, will separate the development from the nearby low-rise neighbourhood. In the meantime, the future park will be used as a staging area during construction of the redevelopment, minimizing the need for traffic disruption along this busy stretch of Yonge.
While current planning documents only pertain to the first block of development at the south end of the site, planning documents show the positioning and footprint of the future blocks, including a plan to build a temporary sales centre along the Yonge Street frontage of Block 2.
Additional information and images 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 in the field provided at the bottom of this page.
