New skyscrapers could replace downtown Toronto office buildings

A pair of soaring skyscrapers could soon replace an office complex in the heart of downtown Toronto.

Developer H&R REIT has proposed to tear down the two southernmost of an existing trio of Postmodern-style mid-rise office buildings at 310-330 Front Street West and integrate the surviving 16-storey building into a pair of mixed-use towers that would stretch 70 and 65 storeys into the skyline.

Primarily residential in nature, the plan to supersize the site also includes a minor retail and office presence at the base of the complex.

A 2021 proposal at this address, also from H&R, sought to bring a 69-storey mixed-use tower to the eastern half of the site, and contemplated plans further in the future for a 77-storey residential building to the west.

Those plans have since been reimagined into a pair of 70- and 65-storey towers with matching designs from Hariri Pontarini Architects utilizing contrasting brown and gold-hued finishes to give the complex a standout presence. 

The redesigned towers are proposed to reach heights of 222 and 207.5 metres. While these heights would only rank as the 15th and 21st-tallest buildings in Toronto if completed today, the towers’ position north of the Rogers Centre and in the shadow of the CN Tower would give the development a prominent place on the city’s skyline.

Residential condominiums would occupy the majority of the building’s floor area. The 70-storey tower at the southeast corner of the site would house 929 units, with 440 square metres of retail in the base of the building.

The 65-storey tower at the southwest corner of the site would include another 853 residences plus 303 square metres of retail space at street level.

Combined, the two towers would introduce a total of 1,782 residences to this already-bustling block of Front Street West. 

In addition to the loss of the two southern buildings in the complex, an existing atrium linking the three structures is proposed to be removed and replaced with a partially covered plaza at the heart of the reimagined site.

One particularly interesting element of the proposal is the aim to retain the existing three-level underground parking garage serving the current complex and reallocate a portion of its 399 parking spaces to the planned residential component, meaning that the new skyscrapers would be constructed atop this underground parking structure.