Huge hotel to replace the last parking lot on Toronto's King West

Even going back just a decade or two, Toronto's King Street West was littered with surface parking lots, giving motorists no shortage of options to park along the major downtown arterial.

However, the rapid redevelopment of this corridor has caused a near-total extinction of surface parking lots on the thoroughfare — with just one survivor as of 2026.

Six years after a hotel was first proposed to replace the parking lot at 689 King St. W., just west of Bathurst, the expanse of asphalt is the only remaining surface parking lot on King West, but it may soon disappear too, as part of an updated scheme to redevelop the site.

Goldberg Group/City of Toronto

Mississauga-based Manga Hotels has been planning a hospitality property at the site since 2020. First proposed as a pair of 13- and 18-storey buildings with 319 hotel suites designed by Toronto-based Sweeny&Co Architects, the plan was adjusted to 11- and 18-storey towers with 269 hotel rooms and subsequently approved by the City in 2022.

Following its approval, the plan sat dormant for years before a revised application was tabled to city planners this fall, supersizing the plan into a single 30-storey tower.

While 21 hotel suites have been shaved off the previous plan for a new total of 251 hotel rooms, the updated proposal introduces 160 rental apartments, making the current plan more of a hybrid model as opposed to the purely hospitality-based vision proposed years earlier.

Sweeny&Co Architects

Though the proposal represents the last property in a rapid shift away from surface parking on King West, the actual on-site parking capacity would increase over what exists today. A planned three-level underground garage would include 88 spaces, along with 98 bicycle parking spaces.

Granted, parking will be much less of a concern in the years to come. The site is located just steps west of the future King West Station on the forthcoming Ontario Line subway, which will place residents and hotel guests within easy walking distance of the city's rapid transit network.