Dazzling proposal redesigned to be an ugly bore in classic Toronto fashion

In Toronto, we get plenty of renderings promising stunning new developments, though these projects are often watered down to dull banality long before shovels hit the ground.

Now, promises of a new landmark residential building that was to rise over a popular Toronto park have been dashed with the reveal of a new design — one that has been stripped of everything that got the public excited two years earlier.

Planned for the final undeveloped block in the West Don Lands — a neighbourhood built within the original Pan/Parapan Athletes’ Village now known as the Canary District — the project at 495 Front Street East, or Block 13, was shaping up to be the community’s signature building.

But this is Toronto, and we don’t get to have nice things.

A 2022 proposal for a stunning 31-storey condominium complex with a design from Henriquez Partners Architects has been completely reimagined in a new 2024 plan. The current plan axes the colourful brick exterior from the 2022 design in favour of a typical Toronto grey and adds a dozen storeys. A classic Toronto bait-and-switch.

The new plan from developers Dream Unlimited and Kilmer Group comes following a 2022 appearance before the Waterfront Design Review Panel, a nonbinding advisory board that is little more than a forum for suggestions on design.

The panel suggested areas where the project could be refined, stating that “there are many design elements in the building exterior,” and asking designers to “consider simplifying the ensemble of materiality, color [sic], motifs, and the different treatment between the tower and mid-rise volumes.”

In short, they essentially said to make it less exciting.

Minutes from the 2022 meeting explain that one of the panel members “felt there are many design features, such as the vertical slots that interrupt the continuity of the lower form, gradation in color [sic], wedged shape balconies and solar shade structures.”

“The amount of articulation is undermining the authority of the basic strategy, and encouraged the team to simplify the design,” they added.

While some are blaming the Waterfront Design Review Panel, Waterfront Toronto, and even the City for the current design, it is important to note that the developers had absolutely zero obligation to listen to the suggestions of the panel, and that changing the design to a bland background building was entirely the choice of the project team.

Some suggest the 2022 vision was a false sell from the get-go, like Globe and Mail architecture critic Alex Bozikovic, who wrote on X, “DREAM do good work, but they were never likely to build something this polarizing and expensive.”