The Filmores building will live on—as a behemoth 44-storey rental tower

After Filmores—the long-standing strip club and hotel at Dundas and Jarvis—closed in January, its site’s future became uncertain. Menkes Developments had planned to build a 48-storey, 588-unit condo tower but changed course due to low sales. Now, just over a month later, the mega-developer is back with a new proposal that better addresses market demand: a rental tower.

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The new plan is slightly less ambitious at 44 storeys and 542 units. Of those units, 148 will be studios (convenient for nearby university students), 183 will be one-bedrooms, 157 will be two-bedrooms and 54 will be three-bedrooms—a rare form of housing in Toronto and a welcome addition for families looking to stay downtown.

Menkes’s proposal also rejigged the building’s parking set-up. Previously, there were 116 spaces for cars, but the new design makes room for only 29. Bicycle parking has, in turn, gone up: 596 spaces instead of the original 554.

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Aesthetically, the new tower proposal looks similar to the previous condo design: a podium that retains the heritage facade of the Filmores flatiron building with a huge tower above it, mimicking the triangular footprint below.

Many high-density developments have been proposed for this part of town and the surrounding neighbourhood of Downtown Yonge East. TMU has proposed a new 21-storey, 1,300-unit student residence on the lot of the Imperial Pub, and there are a slew of 30-to-60-storey towers planned for Jarvis, Dundas, Sherbourne and Church streets. Meanwhile, the owners of Filmores continue their search for their strip club’s new home.