Proposed High-Rise in Toronto Remixes Space Use

31 May 2021 | Toronto, Canada

The proposed mixed-use building at 55 Yonge St. in Toronto would sandwich event space and amenities in between office and residential floors. Image credit: Norm Li

A proposed 66-story mixed-use tower in downtown Toronto’s financial district features an irregular grid of ovals-in-rectangles stretching up its façade. Functionally, the façade provides shading from above and from the sides, and disguises the difference between the commercial and residential floors.

The planned building at 55 Yonge St. would have 14 floors of office, topped by 42 stories of apartments – and, in between, an event space and amenities shared by tenants from above and below.

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In Toronto, a typical mixed-use building is primarily condos with retail on the ground floor. The 55 Yonge proposal “is true community-building in a vertical context,” said Alex Josephson of Partisans, one of the architects on the project.

The developers, real estate investment trust H&R, see good business in the mix of spaces, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. H&R executive Matthew Kingston said shared amenity spaces – such as kitchens and terraces – are crucial in offices as well as homes. “We’ve heard increasingly from office tenants that they would like to have access to outdoor space,” Kingston said. “Before the pandemic, that seemed like a good idea; now it’s becoming mandatory.”

The project would replace two buildings, a 12-story office block from the 1950s and a five-story commercial building originally built in 1914.

For more on this story, go to The Globe and Mail.