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A Frank Gehry-designed megaproject more than a decade in the making is finally beginning to rise above King Street and will soon make its glittering mark on the Toronto skyline.
Construction is in full swing at the site of the long-awaited Forma development at 266 King Street West, the first local high-rise from Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry, renowned across the globe for his audacious design style that has become a hallmark of the Deconstructivist school of architecture.
Gehry, who will turn 96 in February, was 84 years old when the project was first announced back in the fall of 2012. Over 12 years later, it has undergone many revisions, including the scaling back from a three-tower plan to a lesser two-tower version and a change in both ownership and branding.
Great Gulf/Dream Unlimited/Westdale Properties
Now spearheaded by developers Great Gulf, Dream Unlimited and Westdale Properties, the project finally began construction back in summer 2023 with a ground breaking ceremony for the complex’s first phase 73-storey east tower.
Enormous Frank Gehry-designed skyscraper preparing to break into Toronto skyline https://t.co/r8OvNIWPlW
— blogTO (@blogTO) March 14, 2024
It’s been full steam ahead in the year and a half since, and the tower is now preparing to break into skyline views in the coming months.
Following excavation activity and the construction of the tower’s underground levels, Forma has begun for the first above-grade levels, kicking off the megalithic structure’s ascent above King Street West.
Construction has advanced to the third floor of the building, though, with the uncommon geometry and associated structural engineering requirements involved with a building of this type, forming of these early levels is expected to take longer than the partially repeating floorplates to follow.
It may be hard to visualize at its current height, but the tower is primed to become one of Toronto’s tallest, in addition to one of the most architecturally daring buildings anywhere in the country.
The east skyscraper, now preparing to break into the skyline, will rise almost 263 metres, which would rank as the fifth-tallest building in Toronto if completed today. However, it will almost certainly never hold this title thanks to a few taller buildings already well under construction elsewhere in the city.
While the east tower will still rank among the city’s tallest structures upon completion, it would stand in the shadow of the complex’s even taller 84-storey second phase planned just across Ed Mirvish Way to the west.
At 308 metres high, Forma’s forthcoming west tower would be Canada’s tallest building if completed today, though the even taller SkyTower development at Pinnacle One Yonge is well under construction and set to snatch away this title from all other contenders in late 2025.
105-storey megatower rising in Toronto will soon be Canada’s tallest buildinghttps://t.co/wo9hlusGUS
— blogTO (@blogTO) August 22, 2024
Forma will join the ranks of the city’s tallest towers, but it is also a key project in a new wave of architectural landmarks from world-renowned designers popping up across the city, like the mountainous KING Toronto project from Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group and the towering monolith, The One, from acclaimed U.K.-based firm Foster+Partners.
In a Toronto real estate market dominated by cookie-cutter towers with featureless facades, these new condos at 266 King Street West promise to be a shining jewel in the city’s ever-changing skyline.
