The City of Toronto and Cresford Developments have settled on a new plan for YSL Residences on Yonge Street at Gerrard in the city's Downtown. The condominium tower was proposed as a 98-storey, 343-metre tall building designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates of New York and architectsAlliance of Toronto, which would rise behind several heritage storefronts along the east side of Yonge south of Gerrard, but Toronto's Planning Department had issues with the plan.

98-storey version of YSL Residences as per the previous proposal, image courtesy of Cresford

With no final report to Council within the timeframe prescribed by Ontario's Planning Act, the developer appealed the City's lack of a decision to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). Yesterday, the developer and the municipality appeared at the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT, who are hearing OMB cases now) with a settlement worked out between them in the time since the appeal was called. LPAT has presumably ratified the settlement, which brings the building down to 85 storeys and approximately 299 metres, and changes virtually everything about the design. 

85-storey version of YSL Residences as per the settlement, image courtesy of Cresford

The sloping south face, pinched partway up, has been replaced with a sloping north side, which now includes inset balconies. The building's Gross Floor Area (GFA) drops from 97,386 square metres in the proposal to 94,000 in the settlement, but the residential GFA drops from 76,870 only to 75,871 square metres. The number of residential suites increases, however, from 957 to a maximum of 1,106. The maximum would allow for smaller apartments than were contemplated for the previous proposal, the absolute size of each, and mix of layouts by number of bedrooms, to be determined in an upcoming Site Plan Approval application to the City.

Office and retail space of 20,516 square metres in the previous proposal, drops to 18,629 square metres in the settlement version, within which 375 square metres of community and/or cultural space and 485 square metres of day care space are now also required. Another 278 square metres of outdoor day care space are also required, presumably to be located upon roof terrace(s). 

Plans for a forecourt between heritage buildings on Yonge Street—including a wider sidewalk by the tower entrance—have also changed, with the plan now to maintain the Yonge street-wall along the entire frontage. Images below show the site plan for the previous proposals, and then the settlement version. Click on them to see them larger.

Site plan for the 98-storey version of YSL Residences, image from City of Toronto application document

Site plan for the settlement version of YSL Residences, image from City of Toronto application document

More precise details of the settlement version will be available once a new Site Plan Approval application is made to the City. The new design is still required to be brought to the City's Design Review Panel for comments.

There are several close-up images in our database file for YSL Residences, linked below, which will give you a closer look at the cladding details, and which are not included in this article, along with all of the earlier versions of the proposals on this site. You can get in on the conversation by clicking on the associated Forum thread link, or you can leave a comment in the space provided on this page.