Even with all its sprawling suburbs and protected low-density neighbourhoods, Toronto is very much a vertical city, and it’s only getting taller around here.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat ranks Toronto as third in the number of buildings above 150 metres and 200 metres in North America, trailing only New York and Chicago. And with a skyline littered with more cranes than the rest of the continent combined, our skyline is set to keep changing for years to come.
Among the extensive list of projects both already under construction and approved, ten currently in the works will be as tall or taller than Toronto and Canada’s existing tallest building, First Canadian Place at King and Bay (because the CN Tower is not a building).
Here’s a rundown listing some of the skyline-altering projects that could soon redefine Toronto’s iconic postcard views.
Perhaps the best-known in the new generation of tall towers coming to Toronto is the much-discussed feat of structural engineering unfolding at the southwest corner of Yonge and Bloor.
Home to a yet-to-be-confirmed but plainly obvious flagship Apple Store location, this Foster + Partners-designed titan is being constructed with a complex hybrid exoskeleton structure unlike anything ever built in Canada.
It is already rising and approved to rise 85 storeys to an insane height of just over 308 metres, but developer Mizrahi wants even more, applying for an extra nine storeys that would push the crown to a dizzying 338 metres.
It looks like one of the pencil towers you’d see looming over Manhattan’s Central Park, but Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron have designed an ultra-skinny tower at Bay and Bloor for developers ProWinko and Kroonenberg Group.
At 87 storeys, it would contain a mix of office space and over 300 luxury condo units.