TORONTO | Yorkville Plaza | 125m | 100m | 39 fl | 30 fl | Demo

[Elkhanan1]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Oh man, that would have been so awesome at 225m! But when you say "below skyscraper status" how short does that actually mean?

It means much shorter. But the view corridor up University Avenue toward Queen's Park is preserved.

[Grey Towers]

A lot shorter. Something like 120-140m is the latest proposal, if I recall. Why bother even tearing down Four Seasons for that?

[Ni3lS]

As soon as we know the actual height of the new design I'll have it moved.

[HipHopCanada]

Too bad they have to resort to this, looking forward to a new rendering.

[valantino]

Jan 2010 plans

40 storey tower, 143 metres
28 storey "slab", 97 metres

more revisions to come

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Elkhanan1

It means much shorter. But the view corridor up University Avenue toward Queen's Park is preserved.

That's terrible. I was hoping I'd be able to see an urban backdrop behind Queen's Park. I can barely see One Bedford from University Avenue.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by HipHopCanada

Too bad they have to resort to this, looking forward to a new rendering.

It's really frustrating. We'll probably have to wait a generation or two before we see the northern terminus of Queen's Park filled in properly. The people in charge of the approval process think they're in Ottawa, Washington, or Venice. The 225m proposal would have been awesome. One would have been able to see it all the way down from the Shangri-La at the other end of University Avenue. What a lost opportunity.

They'll retire eventually, and hopefully get replaced with people who have a more big north American city aesthetic bent.

[Grey Towers]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The 225m proposal would have been awesome.

I loved it too (kind of an ICE Midtown), although I have to admit that such tall towers would have looked out of place in that location. Personally, I find the Queen's Park sightlines irrelevant, but to plop a couple of huge towers down in an area where nothing else is anywhere near their size would have looked a little awkward.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Grey Towers

I loved it too (kind of an ICE Midtown), although I have to admit that such tall towers would have looked out of place in that location. Personally, I find the Queen's Park sightlines irrelevant, but to plop a couple of huge towers down in an area where nothing else is anywhere near their size would have looked a little awkward.

Neighbourhoods grow. Put these two 225 m towers there and then a couple years later a 180 m tower, then a 240 m tower, and it wouldn't look out of place. Now if that were 325 m tall, it would probably look over sized for the area for a long time.

The CN Tower is the only building I can think of in the core that was massively out of scale with the surroundings. 35 years later, and the city still hasn't grown up to meet it. This one would have been just about right.

Glad to hear that I'm not alone regarding the Queen's Park sight lines.

[urbandreamer]

It's approved--at 48 and 44s. Good enough. I can see it being launched later this year--after Menkes sells out nearby Pears on the Avenue?

[Ni3lS]

Do you have any info on the new height?

[Dimethyltryptamine]

I'd assume somewhere between 160-185m?

Has this street or area got height restrictions?

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Dimethyltryptamine

I'd assume somewhere between 160-185m?

Has this street or area got height restrictions?

Very severe height restrictions are in force here. To the west is an area called the Annex. It's a very old established leafy residential neighbourhood. What's more problematic to a certain group of Torontonians who currently hold sway at the municipal board is view corridors up University Avenue.

University Avenue 'terminates' at the Ontario Legislature then carries on north of it to Bloor. North of Bloor the street is called Avenue Road. 21 Avenue Road would sit just a block north of Avenue/Bloor and sits directly along the view corridor.

The current opinion is that the view corridor must feature sky as a bookend, not buildings. Any building built north of the Legislature must not be visible from south of the Legislature. This limits buildings to about 140 m.

Judging from discussions on here and urbantoronto, opinions seem rather split on whether sky is a suitable bookend for University Avenue. I'm of the opinion that a big north American city like Toronto should have it's grand boulevards bookended by large imposing buildings, not sky.

At 48 and 44 floors, they seem to have come to some middle ground which doesn't make sense either. At this height, these buildings will be visible from the south. If they're visible, why not do it properly and approve the original height of 225 m?

Now, neither side is happy. Sky as a bookend won't be maintained, but using adequately scaled buildings to bookend the view corridor isn't accomplished either.

[sl64]

Meh... I think all this hoopla about view corridors is nonsense. This isn't an overwhelmingly low-rise European city, where a highrise could very well seem out of place in a particular view. The view in any other direction from University south of College is full of highrises! I really don't understand what motivates people to try to preserve these views... so that we can have a few places with "postcard" views where we can pretend, for some reason, that the city isn't predominantly high-rise?

I would much prefer a backdrop of (well designed) buildings framing a view in the context of this city for the same reason as someone in a European city might, for example, want the opposite: just as a highrise would seem out of place in an older city, a lack of highrises seems out of place in Toronto.

With that said, the problem, really, is when just one building dominates the view, especially if that building sucks or is captured from its most unflattering angle (or both in the case of ROCP). The solution, in my mind, is more skyscrapers in the view.

Anyway... all this talk about preserving the views along University are pretty silly, considering how much of a mess the view going south is, and how thoroughly halfassed that whole visual terminus is.

[htpwn]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Very severe height restrictions are in force here. To the west is an area called the Annex. It's a very old established leafy residential neighbourhood. What's more problematic to a certain group of Torontonians who currently hold sway at the municipal board is view corridors up University Avenue.

University Avenue 'terminates' at the Ontario Legislature then carries on north of it to Bloor. North of Bloor the street is called Avenue Road. 21 Avenue Road would sit just a block north of Avenue/Bloor and sits directly along the view corridor.

The current opinion is that the view corridor must feature sky as a bookend, not buildings. Any building built north of the Legislature must not be visible from south of the Legislature. This limits buildings to about 140 m.

Judging from discussions on here and urbantoronto, opinions seem rather split on whether sky is a suitable bookend for University Avenue. I'm of the opinion that a big north American city like Toronto should have it's grand boulevards bookended by large imposing buildings, not sky.

At 48 and 44 floors, they seem to have come to some middle ground which doesn't make sense either. At this height, these buildings will be visible from the south. If they're visible, why not do it properly and approve the original height of 225 m?

Now, neither side is happy. Sky as a bookend won't be maintained, but using adequately scaled buildings to bookend the view corridor isn't accomplished either.

After much thought and consideration, I agree with you to an extent about the backdrop.

If a cluster of skyscrapers can be built behind Queen's Park, I believe it probably could look better than sky. The key word, in my opinion at least, is cluster. Not one sitting on the right of University College like One Bedford, not a single building effectively and singlehandingly dwarfing the landmark like the Met Life Building in New York, but a cluster of buildings so there's a feeling that your in an urban center but its not overdoing it.

My opinion at least, for what its worth...

[isaidso]

I agree with that. I don't think it's realistic or even preferable for a big growing city like Toronto to be stifled in this fashion. The city can respect view corridors, and accommodate its growth at the same time. It will just need to do so in a more imposing way than might have been imagined 100 years ago. One of the appealing qualities of Toronto's built form are the urban canyons and monolithic structures all over the downtown core. It's these juxtapositions that I find invigorating, not sky blue vistas.

Even the Champs Élysées is being book ended by a cluster at La Defense.

[Innsertnamehere]

this has been downgraded to 35 floors. you can delete the thread if you want.

[Ni3lS]

We can just edit the title and move it to the highrises section.. What should the new thread title look like?

[isaidso]

I don't know of a replacement proposal yet, so it might be wise just to leave it till more information surfaces.

[Innsertnamehere]

new proposal:

TORONTO YORKVILLE RESIDENCES 32fl-35fl ???m Proposed