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Plaza Partners have submitted a Zoning By-law Amendment application to the City of Toronto for a comprehensive development on the northeast corner of The Donway East and Don Mills Road, located 400 metres south of Lawrence Avenue East. They seek to introduce four residential condominium and rental buildings ranging from 16 to 32 storeys, situated around an outdoor amenity space, a public park, and a plaza space.
The 2.0-hectare irregularly shaped site is in the master-planned community of Don Mills, in the southeast quadrant of the “Neighbourhood Centre” (the four “quadrants” are bisected by Lawrence Avenue and Don Mills Road, while The Donway ring-road encompasses the town centre). Currently, the site is comprised of four low-rise mid-20th century buildings with a total of 160 units of rental housing.
Plaza Partners seek to redevelop this site with a variety of land uses and housing types into a pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented mixed-use community. Architects BDP Quadrangle have designed four new residential buildings of 16, 24, 28 and 32 storeys, a new public park, and Privately Owned Publicly accessible Spaces (POPS). Overall, the scheme includes a total of 80,731m² of gross floor area, for a proposed density of 4.3 FSI.
The site woould be subdivided into seven blocks; Blocks 1 and 4 delineate the western portion while Blocks 2 and 3 delineate the eastern portion. A new public street would bisect the site in a general north-south direction.
Below is a general overview of each block:
Block 1: Two residential condominium buildings of 24 and 32 storeys situated on top of and connected by a shared 6-storey podium. Also included: an 895m² POPS located at the southwest corner of the site, acting as a gateway to the site and an extension of the courtyard.
Block 2: One 28-storey condominium building situated on top of a 6-storey podium.
Block 3: A 1,791m² public park at the southeast corner of the site to accommodate an array of passive and recreational activities. It equates to 10% of the total net site area.
Block 4: One 16-storey rental apartment building situated on top of a 6-storey podium.
Block 5, 6, and 7 would be conveyed to the City for the purposes of creating the new north-south public road.
The buildings are situated around the perimeter of the site, framing the park, POPS and intervening central amenity courtyard, which together act as a central organizing element and pedestrian open space network.
The podiums are clad in brown brick to mimic the character and palette of surrounding development in the Don Mills neighbourhood, with punched windows and balconies. However, they are trapezoid-like in shape with rounded edges and feature a series of arched entranceways. In contrast, the four towers — which each have a floor plate of 750 m² and are separated by each other by a minimum of 25m — are clad in platinum coloured metal and glass, and have a singular rounded corner for further architectural expression, and to invite views into and out of the central area of the site.
The site’s internal amenity courtyard is publicly accessible and envisioned to be used by residents as a communal social and recreational space for residents of all ages. It features brick pavers, seating, and planter beds, and a children’s playground.
A total of 1,185 new residential units comprise 991 condominium and 194 rental tenure units, including 160 rental replacement units. The unit mix breakdown is 172 studios (15%), 479 one-bedrooms (40%), 416 two-bedrooms (35%) and 118 three-bedrooms (10%). Each of the buildings incorporates common indoor and outdoor amenity areas which have been designed to be contiguous and to allow for a wide array of recreational and social activities.
Two underground parking structures accommodate 800 vehicles (681 for residents, 119 spaces for visitors) and 1,067 bicycles. Each garage has independent ramp access and all loading and servicing areas are generally screened from public view.
According to The Donway East Limited, the first phase of development consists of Block 4, which will contain all 160 rental replacement units as well as 34 additional market rental units.
You can learn more from our Database file for the project linked below. If you'd like, 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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| Related Companies: | BDP Quadrangle, Bousfields, Counterpoint Engineering, Resident, RWDI Consulting Engineers and Scientists, STUDIO tla |
