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Across Lake Ontario from Downtown Toronto and up the Niagara River, one of the Golden Horseshoe region’s most impressive skylines could soon have a major new height peak. A proposal in Niagara Falls is seeking zoning amendments to permit a 72-storey hotel and residential tower at the corner of Stanley Avenue and Dunn Street in the heart of that city's Fallsview Area. At a height of 253.45 metres, the new tower would far surpass the existing 2009-built north tower of the 177.1 m (581 ft) Hilton Niagara Falls as the city’s tallest building. If it were built, it would be one of the tallest buildings in Canada. The proposal is tied to property owner Jeremia Rudan, an owner of the four-location Copacabana Brazilian Steakhouse chain, which includes restaurants in Niagara Falls, Toronto, and Vaughan.
Located just west of the main hotel strip, the proposal site is occupied in part by an abandoned concrete shell which at one point was to be a Crowne Plaza Hotel, work having ceased well over a decade ago. Along with the abandoned hotel site, another two parcels of land are included in the proposal, extending to the north and west.
Parcel 1, as per above, or Part A below, represents the abandoned hotel site, with existing zoning permitting a 30 storey, 90 metre-tall hotel on the site, classified as Tourist/Commercial zoning. Parcel 2, above, is currently zoned for parking, while Parcel 3, above, is zoned for residential. The proposed rezoning seeks to place Parcel 1 under a new Tourist/Commercial zone to permit the new tower, while rezoning residential Parcel 3 to allow a multi-level parking garage to serve the new hotel.
A pair of elevation diagrams from the project's planning report show a “bottle opener” style design for the top that bears similarities to the 2008-built Shanghai World Financial Center. (No information disclosing the architect is included in the application.) A six-storey podium is topped by the tower with hotel suites on its lower floors, residential units on its upper floors, a 56th-floor “sky lounge” topped by a “sky garden”, while a “sky link” aerial bridge would occupy some of the void created by the tower’s “bottle opener” top.
The next step for the project is a public meeting on November 12th at Niagara Falls’ City Hall.
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 below.
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| Related Companies: | Bousfields, Hariri Pontarini Architects |
