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There are few short blocks left in Toronto’s Downtown Core that feature a more prominent assembly of heritage buildings than Toronto Street, where it intersects with Adelaide Street East. For over a century, the city has evolved around this historic block, with the surrounding context growing taller and taller by the decade. That script could be on the brink of being flipped now though, following the proposal of a new development that could intensify the quaint block with the tallest building in the immediate area.
Last week, Goband Development Ltd submitted a striking proposal to the City that contemplates the construction of an 80-storey mixed-use tower. Designed by SvN to rise from an assembly of 17 though 25 Toronto Street, plus 53 and 57 Adelaide Street East, the site enjoys an area of 2,457m². Attempting to incorporate the suite of heritage buildings into the podium of the new building with minimal alterations, the project would deliver 816 new units along with new commercial and retail programming to the eastern Downtown Core.
On the Adelaide side, the proposal includes the home of Terroni’s Downtown location, the York County Courthouse, known municipally as 57 Adelaide Street East, as well as the neighbouring building to the west, 53 Adelaide Street East. On the Toronto Street side, the remaining three properties involved in the proposal include 25 and 23 Toronto Street, and the Consumers’ Gas Building, known municipally as 17-19 Toronto Street.
Investigating how the proposal plans to incorporate this important collection of built history into the development, the heritage conservation plan developed by ERA Architects indicates that all of the heritage facades would be retained, along with the entirety of the Courthouse and the majority of the Consumers’ Gas Building. The only structure slated for complete demolition is 23 Toronto Street, a contemporary two-storey building that features no identified heritage elements.
With 23 Toronto Street removed, its cleared site would become the starting point for the proposal to grow around. The new structure would consist of two main volumes: the tower, which rises from the site’s prominent northwest corner, and a mid-rise volume, which rises directly south of the tower, and extends all the way to the site’s southern border. Additionally, the street frontage of 23 Toronto Street would be filled by a 3-storey glass volume that mimics the massing of the heritage buildings on either side, while boasting an all-glass exterior that aims to not distract from the more heritage facades that flank it; this volume would act as the building’s primary entrance and lobby.
As for the expression of the tower, one of the defining attributes is the balcony configuration. Each balcony is separated from its neighbour (when it has one) by a distinct semicircle-shaped gap, a motif that adds formal contrast to the rectangular treatment of the balcony face, as well as the tower’s sharp corners. The exterior finishing of the mid-rise volume to the south, on the other hand, takes on a completely different expression, defined by boxy windows and recessed balconies, adding visual diversity to the project.
Also of interest in the proposal is the plan to revitalize the small public park, Courthouse Square, tucked in south the site. The park itself is proposed to be treated with a landscaping makeover, seeing the deployment of new plantings and detailing to improve the usability of its space. Arguably more significant though, is the proposal’s plan to improve connections to the park through the creation of a publicly accessible indoor pedestrian walkway and atrium, that would provide an entry point directly to the park from the development’s Adelaide Street East frontage.
No architectural plans for the building nor images depicting the interior programming of the proposal are circulating at this point, so we cannot say how many elevators are proposed to serve the 816 total suites, but we can look at some other figures. First off, the unit mix is proposed as 462 one-bedrooms (57%), 219 two-bedrooms (27%), and 55 three-bedrooms (6%), while in terms of non-residential uses, the proposal includes 2,618m² of commercial office space, along with another 1,599m² of retail space. The proposal also includes parking space for 51 motor vehicles, while a total of 932 bike parking spaces would be provided.
The proposal has been submitted to the City with an application for Zoning By-law Amendment, which the proponents hope will be approved based on both the current demand for new housing, as well as the mix of uses included in the proposed development.
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: | Counterpoint Engineering, Entuitive, RWDI Climate and Performance Engineering, SvN |
