New tower unlike anything else in Toronto is starting to rise into skyline

A rising tower just north of St. Clair subway station is shaping up to be an impressive new landmark for midtown Toronto.

Slate Asset Management and Globizen Group's long-awaited One Delisle project is fast rising from its site along Yonge Street and has begun to reveal its unique geometric form in the process.

The 44-storey condo building boasts a design by internationally acclaimed Chicago-based architecture firm Studio Gang that will look like nothing else on the Toronto skyline and serve as a grand entrance to Canada for the company, being its first building in the country.

Gang describes the project as "tuned to Toronto's climate and lifestyle," highlighting the tower's "distinctive facade [that] comprises a series of eight-story, hooded modules, which nest together as they spiral up the building."

Studio Gang

Work on the project commenced in mid-2022 with shoring and excavation followed by foundation work. However, construction hit a snag in spring 2024 when it reached street level. 

Still awaiting permits for above-ground construction, Globizen Group founder Brandon Donnelly took to his personal blog to shame the City, calling out a convoluted process that was holding back progress on the new build — and it worked.

Developer shames City of Toronto into issuing permit for bold new skyscraper https://t.co/kgEEFkyDaf

— blogTO (@blogTO) June 7, 2024

With permits finally issued in May, construction has since pressed forward at full steam, and the tower is now quickly making an impact on Yonge Street.

Donnelly, who visits the construction site weekly, wrote in his blog back in October that "the geometry of the tower is starting to come through in the slab edges," noting that architects made sure to remind him on-site that "they had to draw each and every one of these."

In November, he elaborated, writing that "no two floors are the same."

"The tower is constantly changing as it transforms from a square at its base to a hexadecagon (16-sided) shape at its top," wrote Donnelly.

In that recent blog post, Donnelly explains that the tower core is one specific element of the building's floor plate that does repeat. This interior portion that will contain elevator cores and stairwells is being constructed with the help of an automatic climbing system that raises the concrete formwork from floor to floor and allows levels to take shape at an impressive rate.

One Delisle will eventually top out at a height of 155 metres.

While taller than anything that exists in this neighbourhood today, it is just one of several new towers that promise to bring increased density to the area in the coming years.

The project will add 371 condominium units to the Yonge and St. Clair area once construction wraps up, currently anticipated for 2026.