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The plan to redevelop Canada’s largest hotel, The Chelsea Hotel on Gerrard Street west of Yonge in Downtown Toronto, has been a protracted one. First submitted to the City in September, 2015 were 4 towers of 46, 50, 74, and 80 storeys along with a 6-storey pavilion on the west side of the site. The plans have undergone a number of iterations since, most notably with one of the towers eliminated. The previous-to-latest plans even received conditional zoning approval at the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (since renamed the Ontario Land Tribunal or OLT) in June, 2019 for buildings of 2, 31, 49, and 84 storeys and 1,709 residential units. Now, property owners Great Eagle Holdings have submitted newly revised plans that will require zoning by-law amendments again as they bring back and actually increase the staggering heights that were originally sought by the development team in 2015, and take the residential unit count up to 1,980, but which do not add any net density over what was approved in 2019.
The latest iteration of the architects—Alliance-designed three-tower project, dubbed Chelsea Green, leaves the 31-storey hotel tower unchanged in height while hoisting the 49-storey tower to a count of 89 storeys and taking the 84-storey tower up to a revised mark of 90 storeys. The two taller towers measure just under ‘supertall’ status, the taller one at 297.25m, cut at that height to avoid new shadow on Allan Gardens. Despite the towers growing in height, however, as no additional GFA is requested, the taller two have become more slender while space that was designated for offices before is being reallocated to residential. Here is everything you need to know about the 2023 proposal.
Beginning with a look at the forces behind the request for greater height, the proponents argue that the intensification of the surrounding area, marked by a number of high-profile towers including the 85-storey, 299m Concord Sky, now under construction across Yonge to the east, and the 69-storey, 218.2m 8 Elm, now under construction on the same block as Chelsea Green, creates a built form that is more receptive to high-rises of the 60-storey-plus scale. Across Gerrard Street to the north is the original precedent setter for the area of course, the 78-storey high Aura, at 271.87m.
The Chelsea Green site is mid-block between Yonge and Bay streets, insulated from both by a row of properties along each, and runs along the south side of Gerrard Street. It consumes the right-of-way of a former connecting piece of block-long Walton Street, leaving stubs of Walton remaining on either side. It also includes properties formerly on the south side of Walton, with a final piece made up of a property that extends south to Elm Street. The existing hotel is T-shaped, the top stroke running along Gerrard while the downstroke extends south across the former Walton right-of-way and into the Walton properties. The property that reaches Elm is used as a driveway for the hotel, with vehicles exiting to the street network again via the western stub of Walton.
The redevelopment plan has always been to tear down all parts of the hotel and reinstate the missing piece of Walton Street as a woonerf, with mixed pedestrian and vehicular traffic (referred to as a 'mews' on the plan), while placing two towers to the north of the mews along Gerrard that are separated by a POPS (Privately Owned Publicly accessible Space), and two buildings south of the mews, also separated by a POPS, while the piece that extends south to Elm is to become a new public park.
In the latest plans at the northwest corner of the site, the 31-storey tower from the previous proposals stays 31 storeys, to operate as a 400-suite hotel. In the northeast corner of the site, the previously proposed 49-storey mostly residential tower becomes 89 storeys. In the southwest corner, the 2-storey 'pavilion' building becomes 3 storeys, operating as retail and/or office spaces. In the southeast corner, the previously proposed 84-storey mostly residential building becomes 90 storeys.
While nearly doubling in height, the massing of the 89-storey building in the northeast corner has been rethought to accommodate an interesting site-specific requirement. The reason it was limited to 49-storeys previously was its position which placed the structure within the Old City Hall view corridor when looking north on Bay Street; a tower of greater height would intrude into vistas of the iconic clock tower from the south, and was therefore ruled out. The new design employs a step-back at the 47th level that cuts the tower floor-plate nearly in half, removing its western portion and clearing the view corridor sight line. The result is a slender upper-tower volume with a floor-plate area of only 529m² that rises the rest of the way to the final height 293.5m.
The additional height increases the gross floor area (GFA) of the northeast building from 41,767m² to 57,416m², which also translates to an increased unit count of 892, up from the previous total of 528. This large uptick in units is partially due to the change of programming which sees all hotel and office uses removed from Building B, retaining only residential programming as well as grade-level retail. With a total of eight elevators, the building offers a ratio of one elevator per 111.5 units.
The southeast building, besides its increase from 84 to 90 storeys, also sees a number of changes to its design, massing, and programming. Aside from the 6-storey height increase to 297.25m, the most significant changes are seen at the lower levels, where an extensive redesign of the podium has taken place. The previous six-storey version is now only three levels, while greater step-backs have been applied to the tower. The resulting area of the tower floor-plate is 905m², which exceeds the City’s standard residential tower floor-plate of 750m² for buildings of more typical height, but which it relaxes for particularly tall buildings such as this one.
Changes to the programming see the removal of office uses from the podium, while ground floor retail and a daycare space on the second level carries over. Interestingly, while the height has increased, the changes ultimately result in a smaller GFA, reducing the building's area from 89,987m² to 76,737m². While most of the reduction comes from eliminating the office space, residential space also sees a drop, with the unit count here shrinking from 1,181 to 1,088. Serviced by 9 elevators, the southeast building offers a ratio of 1 elevator per 120.9 units, which is more than 20 units higher than the threshold of 1 elevator per 100 units.
The resubmission represents a recognition that new office space is not in demand in post-lockdown Toronto currently, while residential space is. Translating that in the designs, podiums and tower floor-plates are reduced in size, while more tower floors are added. The amount of GFA remains essentially the same, while the number of residential units rises overall to 1,980, and a second tower ends up very high.
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: | Arcadis, architects—Alliance, Gradient Wind Engineers & Scientists, Grounded Engineering Inc., Mulvey & Banani |
