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To wrap up our Topping Off series for 2019, we are taking a look at the 10 most popular UrbanToronto Database files, Forum Threads, and News Stories from across the entire year.
Over the course of 2019, scores of new project threads were added to our Forum, (there are now nearly 3,000 project threads, including those for buildings which are now complete), with close to 1,500 threads having been updated during the year with countless new posts. Here are the threads that saw the most action!
10. Crosstown LRT
The Crosstown LRT's construction is being documented across various threads, including separate threads for each station, but the Forum thread for the overall line was our tenth most popular of the year. It would certainly rise in the rankings if all threads for the line's stations were counted as well.
The 2019 start of construction for Cadillac Fairview's new 46-storey office tower 160 Front West has kept the project thread very active. The AS + GG Architecture and B+H Architects-designed tower's thread is expected to remain hot through 2020 as the ongoing excavation of the tower's underground levels paves the way for the tower's climb 240 metres into the skyline.
Work on this mixed-use community from Pinnacle International at the foot of Yonge Street started with the first of the site's Hariri Pontarini Architects-designed towers, known as The Prestige. This tower is now having its podium levels formed, and will soon be followed by the 95-storey SkyTower phase.
Since being proposed in 2017, QuadReal Property Group's plans have been evolving for a new office tower at Commerce Court in the Financial District. While construction is still off on the horizon, the Forum thread for the 64-storey, 169,781 square metre Commerce Court 3 got a big traffic boost in 2019 when an updated design by Hariri Pontarini and architect of record Adamson Associates was submitted to the City. We hear there's another version of the design coming soon!
6. Union Station Revitalization
Several years into the revitalization of Union Station, the transit hub remains a hive of construction activity as work progresses on the new Bay Street Concourse and the installation continues for moat coverings around the station's exterior. Regular photos posted in the project's thread moved it up to the #6 spot for the year.
5. The HUB
Moving into our top 5 Forum threads of 2019, the thread for Oxford Properties Group and Ports Toronto's proposed office tower at 60 Harbour Street saw revisions submitted to the City both at the beginning and the end of the year, the revisions bringing traffic boosts to the thread for the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners-designed office building. It's now planned to rise 57 storeys and 258 metres to its roof level.
The second tallest tower under construction on this list kicked off construction early in 2019. Site demolition, heritage preservation work, and shoring have all been documented since the April, 2019 start of work for Cresford Developments' new flagship project on Yonge Street. The tower will eventually rise 299 metres with a design by New York City-based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates working with Toronto-based architectsAlliance.
3. The Well
Our third busiest thread features Toronto's largest construction site, where seven buildings are adding a new mix of office, residential, and retail space to Front and Spadina. Forming continues below grade on a large portion of the enormous site, while more recently, the complex's 35-storey office tower began to rise from the east end of the site. These activities will continue into 2020, and The Well will almost certainly re-appear in next year's top ten list. The project is being led by the team of developers RioCan REIT, Allied Properties REIT, Diamond Corp, Tridel, and Woodbourne Canada Management, and features design work by Hariri Pontarini Architects, architectsAlliance, Wallman Architects, Adamson Associates Architects, and BDP.
2. The One
In second place for the year, Mizrahi Developments' The One is the tallest project on this list. Easily one of the most anticipated new buildings of the last decade, the 85-storey, Foster + Partners and Core Architects-designed luxury hotel and condominium tower's Forum thread has remained hot as the early stages of construction advance. Now resting just shy of street-level, the building is expected to begin to impact the area skyline later in 2020.
1. CIBC SQUARE
Our most popular Forum thread of 2019 was that for CIBC SQUARE, a two-tower office complex immediately east of Union Station by Hines and Ivanhoé Cambridge. The first phase south tower of the WilkinsonEyre Architects and Adamson Associates Architects-designed complex has been under construction since 2017, and regular photo updates throughout the year kept traffic high while documenting the tower's rise and the installation of its faceted exterior glazing.
We look forward to another year of urban growth in 2020.
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