5.9K 
Making a bold entry into the Toronto condo development market, Montreal-based developer Broccolini will soon be able to welcome residents to their first independent project in this City, River & Fifth Condominiums. Located at 5 Defries Street, just southeast of Dundas Street East and River Street, the Graziani + Corazza Architects-designed tower began construction in Summer 2020, and as it approaches its final form, has become an unmistakable new addition on the edge of the Don Valley.
Tracking how the project has progressed throughout construction, the story began in the midst of the pandemic, with a virtual ground breaking event in June of 2020. The rest of that summer was spent shoring, allowing excavation to get underway shortly after and continue into the Fall. The site bottomed out by October 2020, and a footing was built for the single crane that would be installed a few weeks later, allowing forming work to begin.
The majority of the next year was spent forming the building’s below-grade parking levels, bringing the project up to ground level by the summer of 2021. After that, the process of bringing the tower to life began, starting with the multi-volume podium section. Referring to the image below, we can see that, by spring of 2022, the lower 4-storey portion of the podium had been formed and was also seeing the first traces of cladding installation. Above, the podium steps back on all sides, and would rise another seven storeys before stepping back yet again to create the tower volume.
With the creation of the podium levels wrapping up a few months later, the crew was able to begin the process of forming the repeating floors of the tower by the fall of 2022. Jumping ahead to February of 2023, we can see that the project’s rise had improved dramatically, seeing about 75% of the structure completed in the six-month timeframe. Also notable in the image below is the exterior finishing progress, with the podium both clad and glazed, and cladding emerging across the lower floors of the tower.
Finally, returning to the site at the end of May, we can report that the tower has officially topped off at its final height of 37 storeys. The crane remains active above the completed structure though, to assist in the cladding process, which has made some exceptional progress over the last few months. Almost half of the tower has been treated with glazing, while the white frame cladding motif on the tower’s west elevation covers the entire facade.
As the finishing process continues to work its way up to complete the remainder of the tower’s exterior, interior work to prepare the project’s 580 units is already underway in the lower levels. Marking the start of an era for Broccolini in the Toronto development industry, the project is part of a rapid intensification process getting underway in the Downtown East.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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