5.6K 
With the speedy delivery of affordable housing sitting high on Toronto’s priority list for 2023, the City is not only relying on developers to get homes built, but also on their own real estate management branch, CreateTO. Working with Zeidler Architecture, the CreateTO team recently put forward an application to redevelop a 7-storey office building at 931 Yonge Street, on the cusp of Rosedale, into a 21-storey residential tower with at-grade retail and a sizeable affordable housing component.
Launched in 2018 to preside over a portfolio that includes over 8,000 different properties across Toronto, CreateTO works in the business of city building, transforming under-utilized City-owned sites into developments that attempt to strike a balance between the many forces vying for space in a complete community. With countless projects in various stages of planning, 931 Yonge is being taken to the next step, with approval being sought for a Zoning By-law Amendment to permit the height increase necessary to transform the existing mid-rise into a mixed-use tower offering 165 new condominium units.
Located at the southeast corner of Yonge Street and Aylmer Avenue (which becomes Belmont Street on the west side of Yonge), the existing structure is a 7-storey Postmodern office building housing the main offices of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation. The property was selected for redevelopment through the ModernTO initiative, a program designed by CreateTO to optimize the distribution of City-owned office space, reducing the current footprint of 55 properties down to 15. With exceptional transit access — it is steps to Rosedale subway station — and an abundance of public parkland in the immediate area, 931 Yonge was a strong candidate for redevelopment and will be an interesting story to follow as the ModernTO process advances.
The initial design, from Zeidler Architecture, aims to deliver a sophisticated tower form while working within a set of guidelines that limit the possibilities for the future structure. Most notably, the presence of Budd Sugarman Park and Severn Creek Park, located to the immediate north and east respectively, makes for some challenging considerations in terms of the impact of the building’s shadow. To work around this issue, the building was conceived with a slender floor-plate of 653m² that rises to a total height of 73m above a 4-storey podium. The reserved massing also strives to act as a mediator between the more low-rise typography to the north and the immense scale of the cluster of existing and proposed towers (including The One) located just to the south.
The tower’s exterior features a staggered perforated pattern that reveals the windows of each floor through a white cladding. While the spacing of the windows is consistent across all elevations, the cladding makes them appear to be grouped in sections of three, two, or one along a vertical strip that is one window wide. The cladding also protrudes out from the building subtly in an undulating form, creating shadows that would change throughout the day. The podium, meanwhile, features a red brick finish that distinguishes it from the tower above, making it appear as its own mass at the pedestrian scale.
With a total of 165 units outlined in the plans, CreateTO intends to deliver a mixed-income development by ensuring that 33% of the available units are priced for affordable ownership. The development would also feature a total of 660m² of amenity space, as well as a 164m² grade level retail unit fronting Yonge Street. As for parking, the project follows the transit-oriented development trend of minimal parking, including only 2 vehicle parking spaces in the plans, while a total of 171 bicycle parking spaces would be made available on one underground level.
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.
* * *
UrbanToronto has a research service, UrbanToronto Pro, that provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Toronto Area—from proposal through to completion. We also offer Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
| Related Companies: | Bousfields, Gradient Wind Engineers & Scientists, Zeidler Architecture |
