Several months after a bit of Hollywood descended upon the city for the star-studded ground breaking of Nobu Residences Toronto, the dust and commotion of demolition dominate the atmosphere on Mercer Street. Before work can start on the pair of Teeple Architects-designed 45-storey towers, crews have been busy demolishing the rear of the buildings on Mercer whose heritage frontages will live on in the condo and hotel development's base.
Restoring the heritage facades and a few metres of the buildings behind them, like the former Pilkington Glass Factory, will eventually be carried out according to a plan raw up by heritage specialists ERA Architects, but now that most of the demolition has been completed, enough space has been freed up for the next phase of construction to begin and new equipment as arrived.
The first drilling rig is now onsite to begin work on the site's shoring system. It will be used to drill a series of boreholes around the site's perimeter, into which steel I-beams will be sunk into concrete. The I-beams will become the soldier piles between which timber lagging will be slotted in to create the shoring walls and retain the surrounding soil during excavation.
The project from the team of Madison Group and Westdale Properties is bringing a pair of 156-metre-high towers to the Entertainment District skyline, containing 660 condominium units, 2,907 m² of commercial space including a Nobu restaurant, and an ultra-luxury, 4,044 m² Nobu boutique hotel containing only 36 rooms.
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 thread, or leave a comment in the field provided at the bottom of this page.
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