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In Toronto's Davisville Village, Osmington Gerofsky Development Corp has proposed a Wallman Architects-designed 39-storey residential building on the lands municipally known as 33 Davisville Avenue and 60 Balliol Street. The Official Plan Amendment, Zoning By-law Amendment and Site Plan Approval applications submitted by Bousfields Inc to the City of Toronto's Planning Department follow a trend of intensification of Tower-in-the-Park style lots in the area, with a similarly sized revision of a submission by all parties at 141 Davisville Avenue to the east recently.
Located in the Davisville Village neighbourhood of Midtown Toronto, the 5,638m² through-lot site has a distinctive z-shape fronting Davisville Avenue to the north and Balliol Street to the south. Built in 1974, a 21-storey slab-style rental apartment building with three levels of underground parking currently sits on the site's northern portion, set back 11.2m from Davisville Avenue. Planning Rationale documentation notes that this 266-unit block will be retained and secured as rental housing by the developers. The southern segment of the site, where development is being sought, is currently a privately-owned space serving adjacent residents known as Balliol Parkette.
Development has been abundant within these "strategic growth areas" as defined by the City of Toronto Official Plan and the Yonge-Eglinton Secondary Plan. The site's 115m adjacency east of Davisville subway station on Yonge Line 1 deems it a "major transit station area" under the growth plan and has thus increased demand for high-rise residential intensification. Eglinton Station, a 12-minute walk to the north and currently serving line 1, will also be fed by the eagerly anticipated Eglinton Line 5 by this time next year, increasing the site's appeal furthermore.
Wallman Architects have proposed a 132m tall, 39-storey rectangular residential building comprised of a 6-storey podium and 33-storey tower. As previously mentioned, the development will be positioned within the site's southern section and setback 3m from the property line to the south, increasing to 4.5m from levels five upwards. The 57.5m x 27.5m podium footprint is centrally aligned within the southernmost portion of the site and is consciously 27.5m away from the existing building. This allows for a series of public boulevards, a reconfigured site driveway and access to the internal courtyard. The proposed tower element is offset from the 6-storey podium below; planning documentation indicates that this is to "allow for appropriate setbacks and separation distances from Balliol Street to the south and adjacent properties to the east, west and north".
Aesthetically, Wallman Architects have employed a series of conventional cladding materials, namely transparent glass and contrasting metal panels. The vertically applied dark grey, silver, and bronze metallic panels have been systematically applied on all four elevations of the tower and podium, helping to delineate curtain and window walling and provide visual relief to the building mass. This has been complemented with projecting glass balconies that provide valuable private external amenity space for future residents.
The proposed development consists of 526 residential units comprising 50 studio units (10%), 305 one-bedroom units (58%) and 118 two-bedroom units (22%), and 53 three-bedroom units (10%), which meets the City of Toronto's requirements for percentages of family-sized unit types. A proposed Gross Floor Area of 30,786m² will give the site a net density of 10.69 FSI, which excludes the site associated with the rental building to the north.
Three levels of proposed underground parking will be accessed via the existing two-way ramp fronting Davisville Avenue, providing 167 vehicle parking spaces and 527 bicycle parking spaces.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, 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: | EQ Building Performance Inc., Gradient Wind Engineers & Scientists, Grounded Engineering Inc., Osmington Gerofsky Development Corp |
