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A settlement worked out between the City of Toronto and the developers of a planned new office tower immediately west of Union Station has now been conditionally ratified by the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT). The Union Centre tower, designed by the Bjarke Ingels Group (or BIG) for Allied Properties REIT and Westbank Corp, is planned to rise 298 metres high from its entrance on Lower Simcoe Street beside the elevated Union Station Rail Corridor.
The conditional approval allows the building to rise up to 2 metres higher if the plans were to require tweaking. At the current 298 metres high, the Union Centre is the same height as the BMO Tower at First Canadian Place. As the ground is lower at the base of the Union Centre, however, it would appear slightly shorter than the BMO Tower from an equal distance. Viewed from the north or south, however, the Union Centre tower is uniquely wide — 87 metres long in an east-west direction — on the Toronto Skyline. On a uniquely narrow site, the tower is only 35 metres wide north-to-south, resulting in ~3,050m² floor plates. For comparison purposes, Oxford's proposed office tower at 30 Bay Street dubbed The Hub, which has a more typically square plan of 53.3 metres per side, results in 2,840m² floor plates.
There are no new polished renderings for the redesigned building yet. The previous iteration of the design, articulated the north and south walls into 5 sections with fins protruding from the curtain wall, gradually stepping upwards to the high point of the building in its northeast corner. That produced the look depicted in the images below.
The building, however, will no longer look like that. Still stepping upwards to its ultimate height in its northeast corner, the building now has 7 steps, but no longer sports fins between each section, at least in the simple elevation drawings. It is possible that the working out of a finalized architectural expression has been on hold pending approval of the design, and/or acquiring a lead tenant for the building.
Union Centre is currently in Allied REIT's 10 Year development timeframe. Now that it has been approved, it is possible that it could be built sooner: once a lead tenant is secured, work could potentially begin shortly thereafter, but there are several Downtown Toronto office tower proposals from other developers also seeking tenants currently. Certainly Union Centre has an enviable location, connected directly by to the PATH network into Union Station, but the sector is competitive, and therefore any expectation of shovels in the ground in the near future will likely prove to be a test of patience.
You can learn more about the concept design for the building from a 2020 UrbanToronto article that lays out its programmatic plan — the concept generally remains the same. You can also learn more from our Database file for the project, linked below, and 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: | Kramer Design Associates Limited |
