UrbanToronto's March UTPro New Development Report shows that, for the third straight month in 2022, there were no new commercial offices proposed in the City of Toronto. It's not often that full office buildings are proposed — and with the current uncertainty as to how office space will shake out as the return to office buildings continues, it may be a while again before developers are confident enough to launch another office tower — but it's somewhat rarer to not have any multi-use complexes with an office component proposed. That may just be an affect of the locations outside the centre where the current proposals have been over the last months.

UT Pro is UT's premium database service that collects and reports information on development applications across the Greater Toronto Area.

​​​​This UTPro New Development Report analyzes new development proposals for large projects submitted to the City of Toronto. (UrbanToronto defines a "large project" as anything larger than a typical detached home.) These numbers are for proposals only, and are subject to change at any time up until (and sometimes even after) completion. Due to the early stage of the development process, some documentation may be missing; the numbers for some components of the data might not add up in some cases.

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Ward map of new proposals for March 2022. Each pin represents one project. Map from UTPro. ​

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In March, 2022, there were applications submitted for 13 large projects. A total of 27 new buildings, 3,397 dwelling units, and 2,463 parking spaces are proposed. If the new projects are built as planned, they would constitute approximately 292,716m² of Gross Floor Area of development, developed on 66,434m² of site area, giving a total FSI of 1.20. 

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Quantitative summary of new development applications from March 2022. Data from UTPro.​

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To contextualize these numbers:

• At over 29.2 hectares of total site area, these proposals corresponds roughly to three 1-kilometre stretches of road, with developments happening on 30 metres on each side. (This is roughly the distance from Dupont to Bloor, with residential-sized lots on each side.) With a total FSI of 4.41 for all the projects, this is equivalent to all 3300+ units (and all the other uses) fitting into 4- and 5-storey buildings along this stretch of road. 
• The 13 projects are being built across ten wards: Ward 5, Ward 12, Ward 14, Ward 16, Ward 18, Ward 19, Ward 20, Ward 21, Ward 24, and Ward 25. 

 

Number of new applications per Toronto ward, for March 2022. Data from UTPro.

 

• The largest project proposed is 1215 McCowan (designed by WZMH Architects for Crombie REIT).

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  Summary box for 1215 McCowan. Data from UTPro. ​

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• This is the third consecutive month where no new offices have been proposed in the city of Toronto. We continue into unprecedented times, at least since we began tracking this information in January of 2020. 
   

Number of new offices proposed per month, from January 2020 to March 2022. Data from UTPro. ​

• The total number of applications this March is in line with the previous 5 years (2020 being the exception for COVID).  

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Number of new applications in March, from 2018 to 2022. Data from UTPro.​

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​Across the 12 of the 13 projects, we have records on over 100 companies that are working to bring them to life. (65 McCormack has not submitted documents yet.) Here are the 22 developers and architects involved (: 

Information on developers and architects for each proposal in March 2022.​

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If you would like to stay updated on the latest development news, sign up for a free trial of the New Development Insider. And if you are interested in the data used to generate this report, you can get more details about the UTPro subscription database service here or on the official UTPro page.

For more information about UTPro, contact Edward Skira.