A proposed super-tall condo at College Park is seeking even more height
If the city allows it, the art deco mall on Yonge will be crowned by three new skyscrapers
The skyscraper revolution on Yonge continues. A revised proposal for a three-tower development atop the College Park building has been submitted to city hall for review. The new plan hopes to increase the height of its central, 96-storey condo by five metres while removing 10 floors from its north tower and adding them to the south tower, making the buildings 65 and 75 storeys, respectively. The total number of residential units is almost unchanged, going from 2,334 to 2,339.
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This comes after the city asked developer GWL Reality Advisors to alter its original design, by Hariri Pontarini Architects, to preserve “key heritage views” of College Park and the larger skyline. The complex’s existing seven-storey art deco podium, completed in the 1920s by Canadian firm Ross and Macdonald, was supposed to rival New York’s Rockefeller Center, but the Great Depression resulted in a scaled-back version.
The revitalized podium would complete the original design while renovating the building’s Parisian-style arcade and expanding the famous Carlu‘s outdoor terraces and conference rooms. Notably, GWLRA intends to shirk facadism—that unpleasant Toronto trend of preserving only a heritage property’s walls while constructing an entirely new structure behind and above them.
GWLRA’s project also seeks to reduce the mall’s total retail footprint—from roughly 72,000 square metres to 69,000—while enhancing its shops, hotel, daycare and exhibition spaces. The adjacent Barbara Ann Scott Park will also get a glow-up (though designs have yet to be released) and will grow by an extra 70 square metres, replacing wide stretches of concrete walkways with greenery and attractions.
