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It has now been three years since the first signs of construction began on a large-scale mixed-use redevelopment of the LCBO lands along Toronto's waterfront. With shoring rigs already working in January, 2018 in the southeast corner of the site, Menkes Developments celebrated a ceremonial ground breaking that unveiled the branding of the multi-tower complex—Sugar Wharf—dubbed so for its location across from the Redpath sugar refinery.
Three years into construction, the office tower 100 Queens Quay East now closely resembles the pre-construction renderings. Along Queens Quay East, the 25-storey, B+H Architects-designed building celebrated a milestone this past summer, topping out at 117.34 metres high in August. In the months since, structural steel was erected around the poured-concrete core of the tower's mechanical penthouse level, and deep-blue tinted cladding—with the occasional window angled in to create ripples in the curtain wall—has since virtually enclosed it all. The removal of the tower crane can be expected soon.
The 690,000 ft² tower is targeting LEED Platinum certification and will open its doors in 2021. LCBO will anchor the building, moving its head offices into 225,000 ft², or 33% of the building's total gross floor area, while a 25,000 ft² flagship retail location on the ground floor. Another major office tenant will be the Toronto Region Board of Trade. The building is expected to provide space for about 4,000 office workers at capacity.
Starting construction several months after the office tower, in mid-2019, the architectsAlliance-designed Sugar Wharf Condos Phase 1 complex is now rising steadily to the north along Lake Shore Boulevard East, to reach eventual heights of 64 and 70 storeys.
The two-tower first phase condominium complex has made plenty of progress in the seven weeks since our last update, with two separate volumes now rising from their massive base. The 64-storey south tower's upper podium is now fully-formed, while the first few tower floors (roughly baseball diamond-shaped) now rise above at the southeast corner of the complex. The hulking north podium continues to take shape, with the 70-storey north tower footprint soon to emerge at the site's northwest corner. These towers will eventually top out 218 and 230 metres high on the Toronto skyline.
The biggest change since our October update has been the start of installation for the podium's exterior finishes. The most prominent of these currently is a bird-friendly curtainwall cladding system with reflective glazing now in place and soon to be joined by pre-finished vertical aluminum fins. The still un-enclosed ground-floor is set to include an also bird-friendly, non-reflective curtainwall glazing. The north side of the podium over Lake Shore features a window wall glazing system, which will be partially obscured behind balconies finished in laminated glass guard rails.
At the north end of the west elevation, a window wall system visible at the far left in the image above—and featuring vertical piers of black aluminum framing glazing and louvre vents—is shown in detail in the close-up below.
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