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Among Minto Communities' roster of active projects across the GTA, is Minto’s tallest active project, The Saint. In the heart of Downtown East, it has been rising steadily above Church Street over the past few months, and is now seeing its first traces of exterior cladding while forming work on the tower’s repeating floors advances.
The emergence of exterior finishes is all quite recent, with the installation of the first cladding elements having gotten underway in early April. As detailed in our previous update on the project, the northernmost half of the western elevation of the podium is slated to receive a different cladding treatment from the rest of the podium — so as to maintain a rhythm of smaller volumes along this stretch of Church Street — and was treated with insulation earlier this year in advance of the finishes. Following up on that preparatory work, the crew moved on to install the glazing for that specific section of the podium, seen in the image below. With the windows in place, we can see more clearly where a slight shift occurs at the fifth level, positioning the windows of the fifth and sixth floors marginally closer to the northern limit of the site.
More recently, work on the exterior finishes of the rest of the podium has advanced significantly, with both glazing and cladding now being installed across the west and south elevations. Referring to the image below, we can see that levels three to five have been treated with glass panelling, as well as the black mullion system that clads the seams between glass sheets. Each level features operable windows, while the sections of spandrel are made less prominent by the use of shadowbox glazing, which positions the spandrel behind a sheet of vision glass for added depth.
Getting a closer look at the exterior finishes in the image below, we are also given our first detailed look at the wood-treated cladding panels that accent the podium elevations. Currently only installed on levels three and four, the narrow fins of cladding project from the wall in a triangular shape, adding formal as well as material variety to the appearance of the podium. The next pair of floors will see the fins installed in an offset position from the current ones, and with the triangular project inverted to create alternating shadows.
Meanwhile, forming work is continuing at a steady pace delivering new floors as the building continues its vertical climb, with the tower now standing six full floors above the podium. Upon completion, the Wallman Architects-designed tower will enjoy a height of 47 floors, and will deliver a total of 418 units to the Downtown East neighbourhood.
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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