A pair of towering new buildings could soon dominate the skyline of a quickly transforming Ontario town.
Like many Greater Toronto Area municipalities, Ajax is undergoing a wave of development that has already produced the town’s new tallest buildings in recent years and a handful of other tall buildings in the pipeline.
Ajax could soon see its tallest building record broken yet again, with an enormous new plan in the works from Ledim Developments at 493 Bayly Street West.
The proposal calls for a pair of 62-storey residential towers rising from a shared nine-storey base, with the complex designed by Toronto-based Richard Wengle Architect.
Renderings may be somewhat vague in the project’s early planning stages, but the design marks a significant departure from Wengle’s typical style of faux-classic builds that aim (with varying degrees of success) to emulate the architectural styles of yesteryear.
The towers are proposed to reach impressive heights of 220 metres, which is quite a bold ask for a town of approximately 127,000 residents.
Ajax’s current tallest building is the recently-built Vision at Pat Bayly Square, a pair of 25-storey rental towers rising almost 81 metres at 73 Bayly Street West.
If approved, the proposed towers just 1.5 kilometres away at 493 Bayly Street would rise more than twice the height of the current tallest buildings in town.
Aside from its colossal height, the towers would introduce over 1,300 units to the heart of Ajax, an area witnessing rapid intensification with many more towers planned.
A sizeable commercial component spanning over 30,500 square feet is also proposed.
Despite the project’s urban ambitions for Ajax, it includes some distinctly suburban features like a whopping nine levels of parking.
While the project’s density is largely a product of its position within a Major Transit Station Areas in proximity to Ajax GO station, eight of the total nine parking floors would be housed above grade in the towers’ nine podium levels.
Planning, approvals, and condo sales are notoriously tricky to predict, but the project team currently anticipates the project to reach completion in 2030.
