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A high-profile ground breaking, and the start of work for Mizrahi Developments' The One made big news in 2017, though work on the project at Yonge and Bloor in the heart of Toronto has run into some hurdles along the way. The 85-storey luxury condo, hotel, and retail complex, designed by UK-based starchitects Foster + Partners working with Toronto's Core Architects, was well under construction when work was ground to a halt in late 2019: further permits were withheld pending the fulfillment of a Section 37 requirement for an off-site park dedication at 14 Dundonald Street. With progress being made on the off-site park, the project was granted below-grade permits in early 2020, only to be hit by COVID-19 construction shutdowns a few weeks later.
Once the province added residential construction to its list of construction that could proceed, work was back on. In the months since, as work reached grade, a concrete staging slab at the south end of the site was no longer needed and was removed. That allowed the final underground components to be formed, including the garage ramp. The GIF below summarizes the underground progress recorded since May.
The next big step in the planning process came in June, when Toronto City Council passed a motion directing the City Solicitor to request the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) to revise an LPAT Order with the necessary amendments to allow an above-grade building permit to be issued prior to the conveyance of the 14 Dundonald Street park to the City. Early last month, the LPAT amended the Section 37 provisions, paving the way for above-grade permits to be issued.
This conditional above-grade permit was issued Monday, August 31st, removing the last obstacles for the project's ascent above-grade. After having to put The One on pause, developer Sam Mizrahi is pleased with crossing the milestone, telling us "The City of Toronto and Canada has just issued the highest/tallest building permit it has ever issued for a mixed use development. We are all very excited, proud, and grateful to our teams efforts, as the building now begins to rise above the Toronto skyline. Thank you Toronto!”
The above-ground construction phase will be unlike anything ever seen in Toronto, with a hybrid exoskeleton system that will carry the tower's structural loads with a network of exterior supports that double as the tower's main exterior expression. The photo above shows the large anchor points for the exoskeleton at street-level. Out of view to passersby, and well documented earlier in the construction process, these structural elements connect to large "supercolumns" underground, anchoring the massive tower to the bedrock below.
When completed, The One's 308.44-metre (1,012-foot) height will be Canada's tallest building. While other buildings are now vying to grab that title further in the future, The One's slender height-to-width ratio, structural exoskeleton design, and flagship retail will give the site prominence on both the skyline and the pedestrian realm.
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 space provided on this page.
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