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Capital Developments is proposing a stacked, 69-storey tower atop a base of heritage buildings at 90 Isabella Street in Toronto's Church-Wellesley neighbourhood. The condo is designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects, who are also designing 88 Isabella – a 62-storey project being proposed by the same developer, just next door to the west, that we reported on two weeks ago.
Capital Developments tell UrbanToronto that although they are involved in the two adjacent projects, the investor groups are completely separate, and the sites were acquired at different times. As a result, the Development Management leads are different, and while there is some overlap in design teams, they are two completely separate projects, and applications.
90 Isabella is an assembly of four separate properties; 90, 90A, 92, and 94 Isabella Street. Currently on the site are a series of charming heritage homes that front onto Isabella, as well as a small townhome development that is located in behind. 90, 90A, and 92 Isabella are all designated heritage buildings, while 94 Isabella is listed but not designated on the heritage register. Designation indicates that the City considers that attributes of a building do have heritage value, while listing indicates that they may have heritage value, but that a full study of them has not been completed.
While we wait for the application documents to appear on the City's website and provide more details, we can make out some details from the renderings, which show that the heritage buildings are proposed to be almost entirely retained, rather than just preserving their facades. The podium of the tower would rise from behind the heritage buildings, and be clad in reflective glazing so as to have the base of the building appear as thought it is "dissolving" behind the heritage buildings.
The tower that would rise above the podium would be clad in grey masonry, and reflective glazing that would offer a silver sheen. A grid-like pattern would be visible among the tower's facades, resulting from the way in which the residential balconies would be placed.
A multi-story mid-tower curtain wall would break up the tower about halfway up, making it seem as though a second tower is stacked on top of it. This is done to break down the overwhelming verticality of the proposed 69 storeys.
Inside, the building would feature 570,000m² of gross floor area, which would include a total of 837 residential units.
More information on the development will come soon, but in the meantime, 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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