A proposed Toronto condo development has grown by 40 storeys since initially proposed just two years ago, an increasingly frequent trend being seen as proposals around the city are supersized to meet housing demand.
In the latest example, plans to tear down a block of apartments at 1233 Yonge Street have been rapidly evolving since the scheme was first tabled to City planners in 2021.
What was first conceived as a slightly-above-mid-rise building two years earlier has grown into a soaring high-rise, only to grow even taller in a subsequent application now being circulated among City staff.
The site is currently occupied by a three-storey apartment with 40 rental units known as the Aeneas Court Apartments, which has stood at this site for over eight decades, wrapping around the corner to include a three-storey home converted into commercial units at 9 Woodlawn Avenue.
The site was first targeted for redevelopment with a late 2021 scheme to see the properties levelled and replaced with a 13-storey condominium building containing 70 new condos and 40 rental replacement units in accordance with the City’s rental demolition policies.
A fall 2022 proposal for the site saw the scale of the proposal swell by over 3.7 times the floor count to 49 storeys, while the unit count increased more than sevenfold to 764 homes.
That version of the plan came with a new design from architects Arcadis that lives on in a modified form in the most recent revisions submitted this fall.
The site’s previous developer, Woodlawn Residences Corp, sold off the property property sold to developer Plaza in March 2023 for $30 million, based on data from Altus Group.
However, it seems that the drastic leap in height presented in the previous year’s application wasn’t quite enough for the new management, who have since applied to bring even more height to this site.
An updated application for the site has increased the total floor count to 53 storeys, maxing out at just over 172 metres in height.
Despite the added height of approximately nine metres and the addition of four floors from the 49-storey version, the proposed unit count has actually decreased significantly from the 2022 proposal.
The updated plan proposes 723 condominium units, a reduction of 41 units from the 2022 plan. Unchanged from both the earlier plans, the proposal will incorporate 40 rental replacement units to address the loss of the current buildings on site.
Aside from the reduction in overall unit count, the breakdown of unit type has been altered considerably, with the number of studio units slashed by more than half, and over a dozen and a half two-bedroom suites added to the mix.
A retail space measuring 344 square metres is proposed at the base of the tower, with renderings depicting the commercial floor space as a cafe.
Similar to the previous pitch, the project would have a minimal parking component of just 18 spaces (increased from 15), instead relying heavily on proximity to Summerhill and St. Clair stations on the TTC’s Line 1, as well as an enormous bicycle parking component with the capacity to store a whopping 766 bikes.
The minimal parking component should offset the fears of locals to some degree, though the ever-increasing height proposed for this site will almost certainly ruffle some feathers in this well-to-do area of the city.
