Enormous 14-tower development to transform Toronto's waterfront

A sprawling new development aims to bring 14 towers as tall as 53 storeys to Toronto's waterfront, and designs have been revealed for the first four buildings that will establish a beachhead for this fledgling community planned just south of the Distillery District.

After a lengthy pause in planning activity, a new application dropped this spring for the community at 429 Lake Shore Boulevard East, which is being pushed forward by a partnership of developers collectively known as 3C Lakeshore Inc. 

The new community, now known as The Bend, is a significant departure from earlier plans for this site, which has been proposed for large-scale redevelopment since 2013.

Much has changed in the dozen years since the complex was first proposed. The City's initial plans for the eastern Gardiner put it on hold — and that was only the first hurdle. Early approvals were granted in 2017, but it would be years before the Ontario Municipal Board (since renamed the Ontario Land Tribunal) settled appeals, allowing the project to move forward in 2021 and 2022.

Among the many changes since approvals were won, the City's housing supply has only worsened, pushing planning authorities to approve higher densities than were seen in earlier years. In addition, a severe reduction in office space demand since the pandemic years has effectively halted the flow of new office proposals.

Planning documents attached to the submission note that the revised blueprint accomplishes "right-sizing the distribution of density and building mass to create smaller-scaled development phases that make it easier to finance and build housing; and, reducing the non-residential density requirement to better reflect the realities of the market conditions for commercial and office uses."

In response to all of these changes, the broader community is now planned to feature a whopping 14 buildings with heights of 53, 46, 44, 43, 41, 38, 34, 34, 29, 28, 13, 10, 8 and 8 storeys, respectively, featuring design by COBE Architects, architects—Alliance, SvN and CCxA.

The plans filed with the City represent just the first block of four towers that would be constructed in the northwest of the community, wedged between Queen's Quay and Lake Shore Boulevard.

The four towers in this initial phase are proposed to rise 53, 43, 38 and 29 storeys, respectively. The biggest of the pack, rising almost 178 metres, would be far from the tallest on the skyline, though its location on the waterfront would give it a prominent position in postcard views of the city.

These new additions to the cityscape would house a total of 1,736 residential units. 

However, the tenure of these units has not been determined, and they could end up being condos, rentals or a mixture of the two.

These towers would be a foothold for the new community, which planners state would be "built around a lively and unique network of open spaces that stitch together the site's four blocks with interconnected and publicly accessible courtyards, mid-block connections, and an enlarged Water's Edge Promenade accessible to pedestrians and cyclists."