76 LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2016
FEATURE
IN CANADA'S LARGE CITIES,
the downtown landscapes are changing. Many
Millennials and Gen-Xers have no interest in being shackled to the suburb and a daily
commute. ey are more than happy to forgo large single family homes with yards in
favour of downtown living and its proximity to restaurants, supermarkets, stores and
even the office. ey're being joined in some cases by Baby Boomers who, kids long
gone, are looking to scale down and want many of the same perks. at's creating a
uniquely big-city problem. Most big-city downtowns have a finite amount of down-
town space but face an insatiable appetite for downtown housing.
e sharp rise in demand is making cranes a regular sight in many downtown ho-
rizons as new condos become an unstoppable force. And condos don't mean just resi-
dential units any more — a condo can be residential units stacked over retail. It can be
residential units and retail stacked on top of a hotel. It can even be all three stacked on
top of multiple floors of parking because, with land so scarce, who can afford to keep
an old-style paved parking lot anymore?
In Toronto, the message is coming through in discussions between developers, law-
yers and urban planners who understand the conundrum. Some days, it seems the sky
is the limit — and that's not really a problem. e "One" condo at Yonge and Bloor
in Toronto will be 340.6 metres high when completed, with 76 storeys of residential
condominiums sitting atop 85,000 square feet of retail space.
Where city planners used to fight height outside certain pockets like the financial
centre, mega-projects like the One signal their priorities have altered. "ere's certain-
ly been a shi away from [a focus on] height and density," says Tara Piurko, a partner in
Commercial real estate as a practice
area has radically changed in recent years,
as insatiable demand for downtown living
ushers in a new wave of mixed-used
developments
BY SANDRA RUBIN
Area
Rearranging
the
