Supertall and near-Supertall Rumour/Speculation Thread

[fedplanner]

Only architect and developers want tall buildings. Go over to Paris or Amsterdam and see what would happen with a proposal of tearing down an old building and or replacing with an 80 storey one.

Some people enjoy the view. Others enjoy the location. Yet others may find living in a high-rise more affordable and less maintenance than a single-family home in the city. Developers are responding to people's wants. Bringing Paris and Amsterdam into the discussion is irrelevant. Toronto is Toronto. It wasn't too long ago that planner's insisted that everyone really wanted to live in the burbs in a large single-family home with a white picket fence. Thankfully that era is over. If there is no demand for 80-storey towers, they won't be built.

(Personally, I prefer zero-lot line three-storey townhouses, without an HOA, and within walking distance of a bar and deli)

 

[urbandreamer]

I once calculated that along Bloor-Danforth alone (427 to Warden), given not a single pre-war building touched, and imposing a strict 8s height limit, there's enough room available to build over 100,000 units.

I'm a NimbyTect--not scared of height; but, I'd rather have all of Finch Av or Dufferin lined with 6s gorgeous buildings than two hundred 100s buildings downtown.

 

[Oliver Tweed]

I once calculated that along Bloor-Danforth alone (427 to Warden), given not a single pre-war building touched, and imposing a strict 8s height limit, there's enough room available to build over 100,000 units.

I'm a NimbyTect--not scared of height; but, I'd rather have all of Finch Av or Dufferin lined with 6s gorgeous buildings than two hundred 100s buildings downtown.

I've long thought the exact same thing about midrise along those corridors. I would go even lower with the limit - say 5 stories - the reason being that in the winter the sun doesn't come up very high and only shines on the north side of the street (and only for a short time). If you build to high it will be blocked and discourage pedestrians.

 

[fedplanner]

If you build to high it will be blocked and discourage pedestrians.

?

In my area of the world, the reason why people don't walk is the high temperatures and lack of shade from the sun. How would shade discourage walking?

Back to rumours...

1 Yonge I - 70
1 Yonge II - 70
Oxford Place I - 70
Oxford Place II - 70
1 Bloor - 75
Aura - 78
45 Bay Street - ??
Mirvish + Gehry I 82
50 Bloor - 83
Mirvish + Gehry II 84
Mirvish + Gehry III 86
1 Yonge III - 92
1 Yonge IV - 98

What will be the next site added to the list and how tall?

 

[drum118]

London UK has an 87 storey building with talk of of taller ones.

Frankfurt a city of less than 700,000 is planning an 97's tower.

When you look at Europe 20-40 years ago, very few tall towers over 30's, yet today they have taller ones than us. Very sad we can't get past First Canadian Tower height considering it was built in the 70's.

I want my 100+ tower now.

Not every block need tall towers so long they are continues from 10-25 storey to help to create higher density for the areas that have next to none or very low.

Sorry, tall building will not discourage pedestrians unless they are wind tunnels. Even then, you still have them on the street. Its the falling glass that will discourage them from these glass boxes..

 

[Automation Gallery]

?

In my area of the world, the reason why people don't walk is the high temperatures and lack of shade from the sun. How would shade discourage walking?

Back to rumours...

1 Yonge I - 70
1 Yonge II - 70
Oxford Place I - 70
Oxford Place II - 70
1 Bloor - 75
Aura - 78
45 Bay Street - ??
Mirvish + Gehry I 82
50 Bloor - 83
Mirvish + Gehry II 84
Mirvish + Gehry III 86
1 Yonge III - 92
1 Yonge IV - 98

What will be the next site added to the list and how tall?

Dont forget that Aura, 1 Bloor, 50 Bloor, and Mirvish/Gehry have all submited plans to the city, with a couple already under construction
....so they are not rumours

Here are some other tall tower rumours
The Signature Tower (CityPlace), rumoured 70-75s
LCBO-lands, rumoured 75s
30 Bay/60 Harbour, rumoured 60-70s
Cumberland Terrace Re-development, rumoured 1x 80s instead of 2 (45s, 36s)

For some other rumours...check out my updated list (post#66). http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showthread.php/9157-400-foot-List/page5

 

[Softee]

London UK has an 87 storey building with talk of of taller ones.

If you look at First Canadian Place right beside the Shard, it's pretty clear that FCP is really the taller skyscraper between the two, despite what the official numbers say.

 

[Hipster Duck]

(Personally, I prefer zero-lot line three-storey townhouses, without an HOA, and within walking distance of a bar and deli)

So do I. So do many people. There's a pent-up demand for these but somehow they're not getting built! If I had the authoritarian powers of a Chinese Communist Party state planner or if the world worked like SimCity, I'd raze a significant chunk of the postwar city and recreate Brooklyn or Montreal.

 

[Lenser]

+1

That solution worked far better for regular folks than, say, Albert Speer's grand fascist architecture - the kind of superficially Utopian vision that harbours sinister undertones.

 

[pman]

So do I. So do many people. There's a pent-up demand for these but somehow they're not getting built! If I had the authoritarian powers of a Chinese Communist Party state planner or if the world worked like SimCity, I'd raze a significant chunk of the postwar city and recreate Brooklyn or Montreal.

Agree completely.

 

[Hanlansboy]

But aren't half the supertalls in Shanghai and the other major Chinese cities half empty?, a communist regime's attempt at fooling the world into believing they are now super rich and powerful? I'm basing this on several articles I found on the BBC, so I may be inaccurate. At least here, we have the satisfaction of knowing if a tower is built, no matter what the height, it's actually practically sold out. To me, a 200+ meter tower that's totally sold out is far more impressive then a super, or megatall that is more then half empty. Just saying....what do you think, is the BBC inaccurate?? (as they often are, I take what they say with a grain of salt).

 

[TheTigerMaster]

But aren't half the supertalls in Shanghai and the other major Chinese cities half empty?, a communist regime's attempt at fooling the world into believing they are now super rich and powerful? I'm basing this on several articles I found on the BBC, so I may be inaccurate. At least here, we have the satisfaction of knowing if a tower is built, no matter what the height, it's actually practically sold out. To me, a 200+ meter tower that's totally sold out is far more impressive then a super, or megatall that is more then half empty. Just saying....what do you think, is the BBC inaccurate?? (as they often are, I take what they say with a grain of salt).

Are you able to find a link to the article?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Not the article Hanlansboy was talking about, but similar and interesting none the less. It seems like the Chinese govenment is building countless condominiums, where there is zero demand for them, as make work projects. Make those who suggest that Toronto has a condo bubble look absolutely ridiculous in comparison. Be sure to watch video embedded on the site:

http://www.asia-traveller.com/ghost-cities-in-china/

 

[diminutive]

The Chinese ghost cities meme is overplayed. They're almost all located in the far western parts of the country. And they're usually not so much 'cities' as massive suburbs.

Comparing Toronto to a city like Shanghai is a little pointless. There are roughly 300m people in China who are expected to move to cities like Shanghai. And of the hundreds of millions of people currently living in cities, more than a third live in units lacking things like a kitchen or plumbing; as incomes rise those people will demand bigger units with mod-cons, putting still more pressure.

This WSJ article neatly summarizes the challenge:

The apartments built in Shanghai in the past decade alone would fill more than 800 Empire State Buildings. But even with all the new construction, the amount of residential space per capita is tiny: only 17 square meters (183 square feet) per person. That is about the size of four king-size beds.

Looking forward, Chinese cities including Shanghai could require around 700 million square meters of residential property to be added annually, not far off the 717 million square meters built nationally last year, according to James Macdonald, head of China research at Savills in Shanghai. "China's going through a rough patch but the underlying trends are still there."

I know China's authoritarianism and corruption result in the occasional suburb being built which ends up empty, but a handful of empty subdivisions hardly undermines the sheer amount of construction that will be needed.

There really isn't any comparison between the Shanghais and us. We face totally different circumstances.

 

[balenciaga]

But aren't half the supertalls in Shanghai and the other major Chinese cities half empty?, a communist regime's attempt at fooling the world into believing they are now super rich and powerful? I'm basing this on several articles I found on the BBC, so I may be inaccurate. At least here, we have the satisfaction of knowing if a tower is built, no matter what the height, it's actually practically sold out. To me, a 200+ meter tower that's totally sold out is far more impressive then a super, or megatall that is more then half empty. Just saying....what do you think, is the BBC inaccurate?? (as they often are, I take what they say with a grain of salt).

The "half empty" cities do exist, in very limited number, in the undesirable north western part of China. There is no way cities like Shanghai, the financial capital, largest port of the world's most populous country with the fastest growth, are that empty. BBC etc always tend to smear Chinese in the darkest color possible.

For your information, condos in central Shanghai are sold at about C$600 per square foot or more, just like downtown Toronto. Do you really think half of those buildings are empty? Plus, almost all condo buildings are planned and constructed by private sector developers, just like in Toronto, not by the "communist regime". High supply only suggests high demand from a 23M mega city.

As to the mega talls, the 492M Shanghai World Financial Centre is designed by an American company, and developed by a Japanese firm. The 632M-to-be Shanghai tower is the same. There is no difference between how these residential or commercial towers are planned, designed and built in Shanghai and in Toronto. If you still believe China is in the state of the central government planning and building everything in the country, you are obviously behind the world by about 25 years.