Hundreds of cranes dot the landscape of Toronto, but a few once-in-a-generation projects stand out clearly from the pack.
Anyone who frequents the downtown core has probably spotted the enormous 50-storey tower taking shape at 141 Bay Street, just across from Union Station, which holds the distinction of being the tallest commercial project under construction in the country right now.
Concrete, glass, and steel have been racing skyward for the second and final phase of developers Ivanhoé Cambridge and Hines’ CIBC Square office complex, and the building is now approaching a key milestone with structural completion imminent as of mid-January.
The new behemoth is a fraternal twin of its slightly shorter 49-storey first-phase tower completed at 81 Bay Street in 2021, boasting a matching design of crystalline facades from the team of U.K.-based architects WilkinsonEyre working with local firm Adamson Associates.
While most of the new towers rising in Toronto are constructed using reinforced concrete, the second phase of CIBC Square — like the first tower that came before — is being constructed with a steel skeleton surrounding a central fireproof concrete elevator and stairwell core.
In recent weeks, that central core has reached its final height, and steel is now surrounding the tower’s mechanical penthouse level to form the building’s signature crown.
With concrete topped out and steel not far behind, the building’s exterior curtainwall cladding system is quickly enclosing the office levels ahead of their interior fit-outs.
At a height of 241.4 metres (792 feet), the tower will officially overtake the recently-completed TD Terrace office tower a few blocks to the west as Toronto’s seventh-tallest building. It also moves into the position of the fourth-tallest office building in Toronto and the ninth-tallest building overall in Canada.
Its prominence on the skyline will only be further defined by the addition of a distinctive LED lighting feature that will outline the diamond-shaped facets in the tower facades, replicating the same effect seen on the first phase tower to the south.
Aside from adding a new landmark to the city skyline, the tower will create a visual bridge between the established core of office towers north of the rail corridor and the growing collection of modern skyscrapers south of the tracks.
But it will also create a quite literal bridge between the Financial District and South Core areas through an extension of the popular elevated park over the rail tracks.
Once this second phase of the park opens, pedestrians will be able to take a scenic route over the rail tracks and skip out on the cavernous tunnel below.
And that’s not the only pedestrian upgrade coming along with this massive office tower. People who live and work east of Bay Street will have a new pedestrian crossing linking the tower with Union Station to the west.
CIBC Square is the largest and tallest office complex to join the city skyline since the construction of Brookfield Place decades earlier. And it may be years longer before any projects of similar scale move forward in a town with waning office demand and runaway vacancy rates in downtown core commercial buildings.
