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Toronto’s 1930-built College Park is set to enter its next century with one of the most ambitious redevelopment proposals in the city’s core. GWL Realty Advisors (GWLRA) has submitted plans to the City to transform the landmark site at Yonge and College streets through three new towers, a heritage restoration, and a reimagined public realm. Hariri Pontarini Architects leads the design, with ERA Architects handling heritage work and Public Work overseeing the public realm. The towers are planned at 65 storeys/228.1m, 75 storeys/265.2m, and 96 storeys/333.3m, making the tallest of them a 'supertall' tower of 300 metres or more.
“Toronto has waited nearly 100 years to see a completed vision for College Park come to life,” Daniel Fama, Vice President of Development, GWLRA, said in a prepared statement. “We intend to restore and protect College Park’s heritage while introducing 2,334 new housing units, a new hotel, new retail and entertainment space, and new public space that makes sense for the Toronto of today. College Park will be a major cultural destination.”
With the oldest parts of the existing complex having been designed by Ross & Macdonald in the late 1920s, College Park was conceived as a towering Art Deco complex rivalling the ambition of New York’s Rockefeller Center. Economic hardship during the Great Depression halted the full extent of those plans, resulting in the completion of just a seven-storey portion of the structure along with two low-rise wings, one of which was subsequently replaced by a glass office tower. Nearly a century later, GWLRA’s proposal would essentially complete the original Yonge Street frontage and restore the building’s symmetrical podium, while fully retaining the existing structure rather than relying on facadism — old walls but new structure supporting them — which is a more typical approach in Toronto.
The interior ground level arcade is proposed to be revitalized as a continuous retail corridor framed by vitrine-style storefronts. On the seventh floor, the Carlu event venue (originally designed by Jacques Carlu and reopened in 2003) would be expanded with additional indoor space and new terraces while preserving its historic existing spaces.
“College Park is one of the most significant works of architecture in Toronto,” ERA Architects Principal Scott Weir's prepared statement reads. Weir also worked on the 2003 restoration of The Carlu, noting “for its whole existence, College Park has never reached its full potential. This project is our chance to get it right for the beginning of its second century.”
Each new tower would be set back from the expanded/restored 12-storey podium, and feature vertical articulation that draws from the language of early 20th-century skyscrapers. “Our starting point for the new College Park architecture was to embrace ERA’s heritage work and ideas from the early 1920s,” Founding Partner David Pontarini of Hariri Pontarini Architects stated. “We intend to respect the building’s architectural DNA and bring that up vertically into modern towers that contribute back to the skyline. If you squint, College Park would look like one development, built at one time.”
Plans for the complex have a Gross Floor Area (GFA) of 236,304 m² for a mix of uses. Once all components are complete, the GFA would include 164,263m² of residential space, 24,861 m² of office space, 21,380 m² of retail space, a 18,801 m² hotel, a 1,482 m² daycare centre, and cultural space of 5,517 m².
Tying it all together, a raised, ribbon-like pathway is planned to wind through the interior of the site, linking Yonge and College streets to a glass-enclosed atrium and a new outdoor plaza behind the heritage building that faces onto the existing Barbara Ann Scott Park, which would also be reimagined. The pathway feature is further intended to improve wayfinding between access points around the site, such as College subway station.
The landscape design introduces a denser tree canopy, native plantings, and sculpted landforms. Inspired by the Carlu and the 1920s “urban mountain” idea, rooftop gardens would rise from the podium and connect to the towers via a sky lobby.
“College Park would mark a new metropolitan culture in Toronto by demonstrating how public and urban vitality can expand from the park and the street, inside and out, from the ground floor into the sky,” PUBLIC WORK Principal and Co-Founder Marc Ryan added in his statement. “We want to rev up the intensity of the public experience with a stronger sense of urban forest and more access to light. The building would fully embrace the public realm.”
With over 250,000 weekly commuters passing through College station, improvements to the surrounding streetscape at Yonge and College are planned to ease congestion, while interior circulation upgrades would better connect the subway to the site. GWLRA plans to phase construction to minimize disruption in this high-traffic area, although details of that plan have not yet been revealed.
First opened in 1930 as the Eaton’s College Street store, the building was among the largest department stores in North America, showcasing Art Moderne exteriors and lavish Art Deco interiors. Following Eaton’s departure in 1977, the structure went through various uses before GWLRA assumed ownership in 2000 and reopened the seventh-floor auditorium as The Carlu in 2003.
The restored Yonge Street frontage would complete the symmetrical podium originally envisioned by Ross & Macdonald, while the internal arcade would return as a curated retail corridor with updated finishes. ERA’s preservation strategy emphasizes continuity through retained massing and materials.
Public consultation is being led through College Park 100, an engagement initiative launched by GWLRA to mark the site’s approaching centennial. The platform includes a dedicated website and a series of public events designed to gather feedback and share historical context, with the next community engagement event scheduled for Fall 2025.
“Community engagement has been and will continue to be robust and essential,” says Daniel Fama. “This is just the beginning of a multi-year, iterative process, and we encourage the public to stay involved and share feedback through College Park 100.”
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EDITOR's NOTE:This story has been updated with statistics regarding the tower heights and Gross Floor Area.
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| Related Companies: | Adamson Associates Architects, ERA Architects, Grounded Engineering Inc., Hariri Pontarini Architects, RWDI Climate and Performance Engineering, Urban Strategies Inc. |
