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The results are in for UrbanToronto's 11th Annual Year-End Readers' Poll of Favourite New Buildings that were completed in 2024. Hundreds of our readers voted for buildings in 8 categories, with each category representing buildings within a similar height range. With 91 buildings in the poll, we predominantly had mostly residential buildings competing, 86 of them, with only a few non-residential buildings having been completed in the year. It is for this reason that buildings are grouped by number of storeys (an approximation of height), as opposed to by type; there simply aren't enough non-residential buildings of similar stature being completed to judge one against others. The poll also starts at 6 storeys, as buildings below that number of storeys, with some exceptions, do not normally attract a lot of attention in UrbanToronto threads. That said, here's how those voting reacted to what was on tap this year.
Category Winners:
6-7 Storeys
There were 19 entries in this section — our largest category, which could have potentially spread the majority of votes across many entries — but instead, we had a runaway winner here: 2 Queen West, which captured 51.97% of the votes, nabbing the majority for itself. That's not a surprise, however, if you look at what it has and what it was up against: 2 Queen West from Cadillac Fairview is an exquisite heritage restoration (overseen by ERA Architects) with some new square footage in a modern extension up top (with Zeidler Architecture overseeing the whole project's design), and people do care about attention to our heritage fabric.
2 Queen West's competition, however, was a fairly standard mix of the low end of mid-rise, mostly residential buildings, most with little to differentiate one from another, plus a couple of outliers. In fact, it was the other outliers that took second and third place in the category: QRC West Phase 2, a 7-storey extension to a 17-storey office building of the same name that was completed immediately to its south in 2015 took 8.97% of the vote, and LiUNA Local 183 Headquarters that took 5.16% of the vote. The remaining 33.9% of the vote was fairly closely shared by the remaining 16 entries, although there was one that got no votes at all, the Park Tower at Meadows of Aurora.
8-9 Storeys
There were 10 entries in this section, and it's of note that a heritage-inspired, mostly residential building in Hamilton took the most votes here, with the Augusta Block garnering 39.46% of the votes. The developer is Core Urban Inc., with Lintack Architects Incorporated responsible for the design.
In second place, The Davies on Avenue Road took 20.4% of the vote. Little separated the third through ninth places, but another Hamilton building, Westgate on Main, finished last with 2.24% of the vote.
10-13 Storeys
There were 13 entries in this section, and again, the winners were outliers use-wise: the runaway winner was T3 Bayside, a timber frame office building near Toronto Harbour with 41.03% of the vote, while York University's first Markham Campus building came in a distant second with 12.78% of the vote. T3 Bayside is developed by Hines and designed by 3XN and WZMH Architects.
The rest of the entries were all mostly residential buildings, with little to separate them vote-wise, with three of them tying for last place with 2.02% of the vote each, and another three tying for second last with 2.47% of the vote each. With so little between so many of them, the margin of error in the poll could reasonably be attributed to the quality of the photography, so no point in singling out the least-loved here.
14-19 Storeys
There were 12 entries in this category, all of which were primarily residential buildings. Two stood out, with WestLine Condos taking 25.34% of the votes, and 123 Portland taking 22.65% of the votes. WestLine is developed by CentreCourt and designed by Arcadis.
Carrying Place Vista, a rental building in Weston, garnered scant love, coming in a lonely last place with 1.35% of the votes.
20-29 Storeys
Of the 10 entries in this category, all predominantly residential use again, Galleria 01 & 02 at Almadev's Galleria on the Park project at Dufferin and Dupont won with 26.91% of the vote. This phase was designed by Core Architects.
Second, third, and fourth places here were all close with Westport Condos, Blue Diamond Condos, and Time and Space Condos garnering 14.8%, 13.68%, and 13.23% respectively. There was no standout loser here among the also-rans, so we won't embarrass the also-rans here.
30-39 storeys
There were 16 completions in this section, all residential, but with a couple of them being residential*, the asterisk representing a university residence in one case, and one being about half-hotel... and these two slight outliers took first and second place. Hamilton's McMaster Graduate Student Residence designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects for Knightstone Capital Management and Leggat Investments won the category with exactly 25% of the votes, while the TOOR Hotel and 203 Residences on Jarvis in Toronto took second place with 21.62%.
Garden District Condos, only a couple blocks from the TOOR, took third place at 12.61%, with the last 13 entries scaling down from 8.1% to 0.68% of the votes.
40-49 Storeys
Only 7 buildings in this range were completed this year, with the outlier, the only office building in the batch, easily taking the trophy here: 160 Front West, known as TD Terrace to those in the large section leased to TD Bank, took 47.39% of the vote. It is designed by AS + GG Architecture and B+H Architects for Cadillac Fairview
Of the 6 primarily residential buildings, there was little to separate 5 of them, with two sharing second place; Nobu Residences and Hotel (which has a heritage component) and Peter and Adelaide each boasting 12.2% of the vote. While three more buildings fairly evenly shared 26.76% of the vote, there was a clear loser here though, with Central Condos taking only 1.81% of the vote.
50-Plus Storeys
Just 4 buildings were in our tallest category, with the standout, the only one with a large commercial component, Toronto House with both an office space podium and a hotel taking a small percentage of the residential tower above, taking 61.85% of the vote, the clearest choice in the poll. The building was designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects with ERA Architects overseeing the heritage base restoration for Westbank Corp and Allied Properties REIT.
The remaining three, all mostly residential, split the remaining 38.15% fairly evenly, with no obvious loser.
That's it for the winners this year, but if you visit this link, you can see all of the buildings that competed.
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