A developer that claimed it would not add towers to a beloved Toronto landmark has revealed plans to add three enormous skyscrapers to the very site it previously denied was in play.
Great-West Life Realty Advisors (GWLA) — the Toronto-based asset management arm of Canada Life’s parent company, have revealed an ambitious plan to construct towers as tall as 96 storeys sprouting from the venerable College Park complex at Yonge and College streets.
The plan calls for a trio of Hariri Pontarini Architects-designed towers with heights of 65, 75, and 96 storeys. The tallest of the pack would rise just over 333 metres, which would place it among the tallest buildings in Canada, and taller than any existing tower as of mid-2025.
“Toronto has waited nearly 100 years to see a completed vision for College Park come to life,” said Daniel Fama, vice-president of development at GWLRA.
Fama stated that GWLRA intends to “restore and protect College Park’s heritage, while introducing 2,334 new housing units, a new hotel, new retail and entertainment space, and new public space that makes sense for the Toronto of today,” adding that “College Park will be a major cultural destination.”
College Park’s original 1920s vision from the firm Ross & Macdonald called for a huge Art Deco skyscraper to be constructed at Yonge and College.
However, the Great Depression saw plans scaled back dramatically, and the College Park complex today is merely the base of this great tower that never was.
Scott Weir, principal at heritage restoration specialist firm ERA Architects, says that “For its whole existence, College Park has never reached its full potential. This project is our chance to get it right for the beginning of its second century.”
Redevelopment is expected to coincide with the College Park site’s centennial anniversary in 2030.
However, these ambitious plans now proudly touted by GWLRA were denied by the company just a year and a half earlier.
GWLRA explicitly denied its intentions to redevelop College Park in a late 2023 statement shared with blogTO in response to unearthed documents showing that the company was in the process of lobbying City Hall regarding the Art Deco landmark.
This same statement also denied that “specific” plans were in the works to redevelop the Canada Life Building, and based on the College Park plans revealed this week, it’s a safe bet that the landmark on University Avenue — famous for its weather beacon — could also be in play.
