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Quayside Impact Limited Partnership (QILP), led by Dream Unlimited and Great Gulf, in partnership with Waterfront Toronto, has returned to City Planning with a revised submission for the Quayside master plan on land bounded by Lake Shore Boulevard East, Bonnycastle Street, Queens Quay East, and Small Street. The update restructures phasing to accelerate rental and affordable housing delivery, deferring condominiums to a later stage, while reworking the design, shape, and number of buildings.
The previously approved plan for the west portion of Quayside aimed to bring three towers — the tallest of which was to be 70 storeys, highlighted in yellow just right of centre in the image below, the next two being to the right — and a single mass-timber mid-rise which included a bridge element across Small Street to the east portion of Quayside, seen in front of the proposed towers in the rendering below:
The new plan for the west portion replaces the 70-storey tower with two towers of 50 and 57 storeys, seen 'ghosted' in the updated image below, while tweaking the two towers to the east. The single block-long mass-timber mid-rise has been replaced with two mid-rises of more conventional construction, and no longer bridges Small Street.
The full 4.9 hectare Quayside plan first emerged in June, 2023. That scheme called for five towers (two more to the east of the area covered in the current west portion resubmission), the mass-timber mid-rise, a childcare centre, a community forest in a POPS (Privately Owned Publicly-accessible Space), plus a new park on the east side along with a lakeside landmark destination in the southeast corner, use to be determined. Council adopted the Zoning By-law in July, 2024, approving towers of 55, 64, and 70 storeys plus a 12-storey timber mid-rise on the west portion, while applications for the eastern buildings advanced separately. The approval secured affordable housing, community facilities, and the POPS.
The updated site plan below shows the new arrangement of buildings on the 2.8 hectare west portion of Quayside, maintaining the 4,100m² community forest in the POPS. Alison Brooks Architects is the designer of Buildings 1A1 and 1A2, planned as condos, Henning Larsen Architects of Building 1B, planned as rentals, and Teeple Architects of Buildings 1C1, 1C2, and 1C3, replacing Adjaye Associates from the earlier plan, and planned as affordable rentals. (Buildings 1C2 and 1C3 will appear as one building from the exterior, but will have separate hallways for each.) Building 2 is designed by Allies and Morrison with architects—Alliance as Architect of Record, and is planned as a rental tower along which will hold a 3,060m² Community Hub in its base.
The site is an assembly of 257 through 291 Lake Shore Boulevard East, 200 Queens Quay East, and 2 Small Street. Currently occupied by low-rise commercial and office buildings, the surroundings include the Monde condominium to the west across Bonnycastle Street, the recently built Bayside residential buildings to the south whose names begin with Aqua- (along with the T3 Bayside mass-timber office building), while there are more high-rise proposals to the east. To the north is the Gardiner Expressway, the Union Station Rail Corridor, and the St Lawrence neighbourhood.
To advance the revised plan, Urban Strategies has filed a new Zoning By-law Amendment on behalf of QILP for Blocks 1 and 2, alongside a suite of Site Plan Approval (SPA) applications. These include resubmissions for the master underground and ground-level components, updated SPAs for Buildings 1B and 1C, and a new SPA for Building 2. A Part Lot Control application has also been resubmitted to reflect the revised phasing and land division.
Block 1A, previously the single 70-storey, 242.5m 'Western Curve' tower with 894 units and more than 9,000m² of space which George Brown College had requested, has been reconfigured into two slimmer condominium towers, now identified as Buildings 1A1 and 1A2. Rising to 50 (172.6m) and 57 (193.9m) storeys, the pair together would accommodate 1,168 condominium units. Their 76,509m² GFA would be mostly residential at 75,862m², plus 648m² of retail replacing the George Brown College space which the school no longer needs. There would be 307 resident parking spaces and 1,287 bicycle spaces provided below grade. The application notes the following:
"Given the macroeconomic deterioration in the condominium market since the approval of By-law 852-2024, the original concept is no longer feasible. Additionally, the post-secondary educational space previously proposed in Building 1A is no longer needed by the potential educational partner. As such, the design of Block 1A has needed to be reconfigured. The previously proposed one large mixed-use tower is being replaced by two residential towers with at-grade retail."
To the east, Building 1B has evolved from the previously approved 64-storey, 228m 'Overstory' condo tower into a 66-storey rental building that now anchors the revised plan. At 193.9m in height, it stands as the tallest element on the site, with a total of 52,700 m² of residential GFA. The program is divided between 553 market rental units on the upper floors and 176 affordable rental units concentrated between floors 2 and 16, bringing the building’s unit count to 729. The building's design refinements respond directly to its relationship with the central Community Forest: its podium has been reshaped with deeper setbacks, widened planting areas, and enlarged glazing to improve the Forest’s southern edge and create stronger indoor-outdoor connections. The tower’s massing is more slender than before, helping to preserve daylight and views into the mid-block open space.
To the south, Building 1C has moved away from its original concept as a single 12-storey, mass-timber building with cantilevered portals. According to the application, structural and cost challenges limited the amount of affordable and family-sized housing it could accommodate. In its place, the developers now propose three conventional mid-rise buildings (1C1, 1C2, and 1C3), each rising 12 storeys and collectively delivering 377 units of Affordable Rental Housing (ARH). This boosts the affordable rental supply and redistributes mass to create larger openings onto the Community Forest, improving sunlight penetration. The application notes the following:
"Based on market soundings with non-profit ARH providers, it was determined that standalone sites should be prioritized. In revisiting the housing plan, this feedback was taken into account. Buildings 1C1, 1C2 and 1C3 are therefore three standalone sites roughly equal in size that will provide 145, 114, and 118 ARH units, respectively.
The previous 1C mass timber design included a dramatic cantilever and a significantly sized portal opening, both of which required substantial structural supports. These structural requirements created challenges in achieving the desired number of affordable housing units and proportion of family-sized units for this project. Additionally, there was a desire to rapidly deliver the affordable housing units in Quayside, requiring less complicated building strategies. As such, the project team decided on a move away from mass timber in lieu of typical construction material. The Revised Blocks 1 and 2 Development is still targeted to meet TGS v4 Tier 1 and CaGBC’s Zero Carbon Building Design."
Together, the three mid-rises would contribute 28,947m² of residential GFA, entirely dedicated to affordable housing. The buildings are designed with setbacks and breaks in massing to frame pedestrian routes into the Forest, while maintaining active ground floors that reinforce the Queens Quay frontage.
Meanwhile, Building 2, which will house the Community Hub, completes the set of buildings planned for the western portion of Quayside: UrbanToronto is publishing a separate story on its revisions.
The total revised program would deliver 2,850 residential units within 202,878m² of Gross Floor Area (GFA), equal to a Floor Space Index of 11.1 times coverage of the site. This would include 197,396m² residential, 2,231m² retail, and 3,060m² institutional space for the Community Hub. Purpose-built rental housing grows to 1,129 units, while new condominium units are reduced to 1,168. Compared to 2024, total units rise from 2,811 to 2,850, affordable units from 458 to 553, and residential GFA increases by nearly 18,000m².
The site is beside the Gardiner Expressway which can be accessed via ramps at Jarvis Street. Vehicular parking doubles from 288 to 658 spaces, with 579 for residents, 17 for retail, 13 for the Community Hub, and 49 car-share spaces. The site can be reached by TTC buses from Union Station via Queens Quay, or from Bloor-Danforth Line 2 via Sherbourne Street, while the planned Waterfront East LRT wold improve its transit access once funded and built. Bicycle parking space climbs from 3,262 to 3,804 stalls.
Construction would begin with the mid-rise 1C2 and 1C3 Buildings and Building 2, ensuring early delivery of affordable housing and the Community Hub. Subsequent phases would bring the remaining 1C building and the rental tower at 1B, with the two Block 1A condominium towers deferred to the final stage.
Development in the area continues to intensify, reshaping the East Bayfront. To the south, Tridel and Hines’ Bayside community is built out, with Aqualina and Aquavista at 13 storeys, Aquabella at 14 storeys, and the 18-storey Aqualuna. To the west, construction is underway on the 21-storey Quay House (21 storeys) and Pinnacle Lakeside Phase 1 (three towers from 15 to 54 storeys), with a 43-storey Phase 2 also planned, alongside a 22-storey proposal at 180 Queens Quay East. Eastward, proposals include 307 Lake Shore East (49 storeys) and 351 Lake Shore East (41 and 49 storeys), while Quayside’s Blocks 3 and 4 are slated to add four towers at 12 to 72 storeys.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database files, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversations in the associated Project Forum threads or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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| Related Companies: | Arcadis, architects—Alliance, Dream Unlimited, Great Gulf, Grounded Engineering Inc., RWDI Climate and Performance Engineering, Urban Strategies Inc., Vortex Fire Consulting Inc. |
