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Almost 14 years after the infamous Bay Adelaide stump—an unsightly relic of a stalled office complex—was removed from Toronto's Financial District, and 11 years since the 2009 completion of the first phase west tower in a restarted three-tower plan, the final phase of Brookfield Property Partners' Bay Adelaide Centre is rising on Temperance Street. The complex's 51-storey West Tower and 2016-completed, 44-storey East Tower are now being joined by a 32-storey building to be known as the Scotiabank North Tower at Bay Adelaide Centre to reflect the recent signing of anchor tenant Scotiabank.
Designed by KPMB Architects and Adamson Associates Architects, we've been tracking construction activity since 2018, when preliminary site activity commenced. In early 2019, heavy construction began with the reconfiguration of a section of the underground garage completed with the 2009-built first phase, making way for structural changes to support the new tower. The PATH-level food court which sat above the parking garage was also closed. Another construction milestone followed last summer, when the first tower crane was installed on the site, allowing the re-construction of underground structure the begin.
Reaching grade late in 2019, the first signs of the tower's concrete core were apparent above grade by the start of this year, and when we last checked in, in late April, the core had risen seven storeys above Temperance Street. Now over halfway through 2020, the core stands over a dozen storeys tall, and has begun to peek into skyline views from elevated positions around the city. In the image below, captured from the north, the rising tower core can be seen in the centre of the view, marked by its red and white-painted.
As the core rises higher, steel installation is forming the structural skeleton and habitable office floors below. Three months ago, steel installation had reached only as far as the first and second floors; now, steel has risen up to the sixth floor, revealing the full tower footprint.
The tower will eventually top out at a height of 140 metres with an area of 810,344 ft², helping to step down the complex's taller east and west towers and the wider Financial District to meet the heights and densities of the towers to the north, and not adding any new shadow to Nathan Phillips Square.
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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