junctionist
Senior Member
Does anyone want a supertall tower on the waterfront? That current plans have no buildings remotely close to the scale of a supertall.
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Toronto's Second Supertall?
- Thread starter Kitsune
- Start date
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Waterfront does not necessarily mean by the waters edge,i would say anything south of Front street.Example 45 Bay St, Cityplace, 1 Yonge St.
If your judging on current plans Toronto will never see a supertall.
Translude15
Frank the Tank
It's inetersting to note that Toronto has had numerous opportunities for a supertall or supertalls. TD Centre, Royal Bank Plaza and Brookfield Place all contain multiple structures that are essentially identical except for varying heights. It would have been very possible for two exsiting towers to have been merged together into one and voila, supertall.
adma
Superstar
Except that at the time they were built, they were "supertall" enough--in several cases, The Tallest Building In The British Commonwealth. This was back when there were only 5-10 buildings in the world over 1000 feet, remember....
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Yeah they were also all in NewYork and Chicago.
egotrippin
Senior Member
As time goes on and the city evolves, I'm sure we're bound to see skyscrapers well over 1000' in our skyline soon enough. I'm quick to imagine we'd get one tucked away in one of the last open lots in the financial district, but it seems apparent that the City Hall folks are too worried about shadows and whatnot. With the onset of projects like Aura and 1BE, I can see Toronto getting its next supertall somewhere up Yonge Street. Ideally I'd like to see 1BE go ahead at over 900', with a 1000-1500' tower on the southwest corner. Say that comes to fruition, it'd be nice to redevelop the southeast corner of Bloor and Balmuto with another big tower. Will they be close together, will it be dense? Yes, but that's all apart of getting bigger as a city. Toronto still has a lot of open space in the downtown core that needs some tall buildings shoehorned in.
Automation Gallery
Superstar
I agree that sooner or later this city will see a supertall 1200/1500 footer.but it wont be under this leftwing mayor and city council that seem to think that 1000ft is the cap.Mississauga will have one up before Toronto.
yyzer
Senior Member
I would say that is highly unlikely....a supertall would require an office component, almost certainly....there is very little market for highrise offices in MCC...
TrickyRicky
Senior Member
The more important question should be do "super-tall" commercial buildings make any sense to build in this city? The answer is likely no and this being Toronto, the practical will win out over the sentimental. Toronto has a lot of opportunity to scale up commercial employment downtown and throughout the city and city region nodes without building super tall buildings. This means that any super-tall building of the future will likely be mixed use, but primarily for residential use. We will not see super-tall residential structures proposed in this city for at least a decade after the current batch is complete, and commercial super-talls will not be built in this city in our lifetimes. Sorry, the truth hurts but that's how I see it. We can look forward to a sea of towers being built in this city but no super-talls.
It was just over 40 years ago when the tallest building in the city was the Royal York Hotel. I was already born at that point so in my lifetime we've seen amazing growth. No reason to believe we couldn't have many super-talls within the next 40 years. And with zoning being what it is today I doubt we'll see the downtown core spread into lowrise residential areas as in the past. That means the core we have to go higher and higher.
MisterF
Senior Member
Why do you say that? More skyscrapers have been built in Miller's time in office than in any similar time period in Toronto's history. That includes Trump, which was approved at over 1000 ft. Other than Stinson's tower that would have put shadows on Nathan Philips Square, how many 1000 ft proposals has this council has turned down?
adma
Superstar
*Second* tallest. The old Bank of Commerce was/is taller.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
Well, you could probably abandon hopes for a 'supertall' being proposed within the next decade or so. In the longer term though, I see no reason why a supertall is unlikely. I doubt there is any way commercial development will move to a 'European' model of mid-rise buildings spread over the downtown core. Zoning regulations are completely stacked against this. For right or wrong we all know development in the low rise portions of downtown is the difficult. European businesses hate this anyways and there is no economic sense to it, just look at the success of Canary Wharf relative to the City and similar cases in Paris and other markets. A more likely scenario is a greater move to suburban office parks. That is probably the most likely for any business that doesn't derive a tangible benefit from location downtown.
So, if we ever do get a commercial supertall, it will almost definitely have to be finance related. Under current financial regulations and market spasms though, no banks will be looking for a big block of office space though. Going forward the Canadian Banking Act will have to be revamped. The only way a big enough demand for office space could develop is if foreign banks were allowed into the Canadian market. Canary Wharf basically works as the European HQs for American Banks like Citi Group, Morgan Stanley, BoA, Baer Stearns and (formerly) Lehman Bros and all the services these use. Toronto would have to attract these companies in a big way, which is currently impossible.
EDIT: Another way could be government related. I don't have any statistics on this, but I imagine if you add up government office space maintained by the 3 levels of government in Toronto you could easily fill a 'supertall'. Basically sell of all government offices not in Queen's Park or New City Hall and move them into one supertall. It could potentially be justified on cost savings from maintaining one central facility.
So, if we ever do get a commercial supertall, it will almost definitely have to be finance related. Under current financial regulations and market spasms though, no banks will be looking for a big block of office space though. Going forward the Canadian Banking Act will have to be revamped. The only way a big enough demand for office space could develop is if foreign banks were allowed into the Canadian market. Canary Wharf basically works as the European HQs for American Banks like Citi Group, Morgan Stanley, BoA, Baer Stearns and (formerly) Lehman Bros and all the services these use. Toronto would have to attract these companies in a big way, which is currently impossible.
EDIT: Another way could be government related. I don't have any statistics on this, but I imagine if you add up government office space maintained by the 3 levels of government in Toronto you could easily fill a 'supertall'. Basically sell of all government offices not in Queen's Park or New City Hall and move them into one supertall. It could potentially be justified on cost savings from maintaining one central facility.
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adma
Superstar
It might depend on how one defines "supertall"--after all, today's TD/CC/FCP/SP are supertalls by pre-Asian-boomtown standards...
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I always had the idea a 'supertall' is anything over 1,000 ft, which I think barely disqualifies FCP to begin with if you don't count the mast. A lot of it can feel relative though, I suppose. Canary Wharf seems very vertical, but it really isn't anything spectacular by global standards.