Toronto apartment building could be torn down for enormous 59-storey tower

A midtown Toronto apartment building could soon be torn down to make way for a towering redevelopment scheme that would soar high above its surroundings.

Property owner Starlight Investments has filed plans with the City of Toronto to redevelop its property at 250 Roehampton Ave., just northwest of the soon-to-open Mount Pleasant Station on the TTC Line 5 Eglinton.

Starlight plans to demolish the existing 11-storey apartment building known as The Ambassador and replace it with an enormous tower designed by architects BDP Quadrangle, rising just shy of 200 metres.

While the current apartment building lacks heritage protections, it represents one of the more stylized examples of a once-ubiquitous style of residential development in the city, boasting mid-century modernist influences on top of the then-typical slab-style massing.

250roehamptonave.com

The plan contemplates 711 rental units, including 92 which would serve as replacement units for the current building and be offered at lower rates with the right to return for existing residents. However, even these City-imposed rental replacement policies do little to soften the blow for displaced tenants. 

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A total of 619 market-rate units are planned in a breakdown of 177 studio units (29 per cent), 377 one-bedroom units (46 per cent), 116 two-bedroom units (15 per cent) and 61 three-bedroom units (10 per cent). 

However, many units have been designed to be combined via knockout panels, which would reduce the unit mix of market-rate rentals to 535 suites, including 121 studios, 175 one-bedrooms, 151 two-bedrooms and 88 three-bedrooms.

Despite proximity to the Line 5 station being one of the very precedents that paved the way for such immense heights on a side street, the proposal really packs in the parking in an already gridlocked Yonge and Eglinton neighbourhood.

The plan calls for four floors of below-grade parking with a total of 304 parking spaces, along with 393 bicycle parking spaces.

The application is still in its earliest stages, and public consultations are expected to follow in the new year.