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Passersby on Temperance Street between Yonge and Bay in Toronto's Financial District may feel like they've stepped into a time slip, with a rising concrete tower core now resembling the infamous "stump" that dominated the site of the stalled original Bay Adelaide Centre development from 1991 to 2006. Unlike it, which represented the sudden end of the 80s-90s building boom and accompanying recession, the now-rising core for the north tower of the Bay Adelaide Centre represents the first above-grade progress for the third and final phase of a now successful office complex amid surging demand for space in the city.
Following on the heels of the 2009-completed, 51-storey West Tower and the 2016-completed, 44-storey East Tower, Brookfield Property Partners is building their last phase at the project, recently renamed the Scotiabank North Tower at Bay Adelaide Centre to recognize the bank's lease of 420,000 square feet of the 810,344 square foot tower. Designed by KPMB Architects and Adamson Associates Architects, it is going up north of Arnell Plaza, the square that nestles between the first two phases, and will be 32-storeys tall. Its southern face will front quiet Temperance Street beside Arnell Plaza, while the north face will front on busy Richmond Street.
We last checked in on construction in November of last year, roughly one year after the start of demolition began to clear the site for construction. At that point, crews had finished reworking a section of the 2009-completed underground garage for the new tower’s elevator core, and following the installation of a crane, had brought the new concrete core to grade. Now a few months later, the tower core now rises a couple storeys into the air.
As the concret core grows taller over the coming months, it will start to be surrounded in a steel structural skeleton, the same construction method used for the previous two phases. In the end, the tower will reach a height of 140 metres, shorter than its siblings to the south, transitioning the taller towers of the Financial District down to the scale of shorter towers along Queen Street, and not adding new shadow to Nathan Phillips Square to the northwest.
You can learn more from our Database file for the project, linked below. If you'd like to, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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