One year ago, a Zoning By-law Amendment application was submitted to the City of Toronto for a 25-storey, mixed-use building with a distinctive look on Weston Road south of Lawrence Avenue West. Flash forward to February 2023, and a resubmission significantly increases the size of the proposal while simplifying the design. A1 Development and A1 Capital submitted the revised application for 1746 Weston Road, southeast of the Weston GO station and overlooking the Humber River.
The site is an irregular shape at the southwest corner of Weston Road and Wilby Crescent, located not far south of Lawrence Avenue. Municipally addressed as 1736 and 1746 Weston Road, the two assembled lots are 1,849m² in total area and contain single-storey and two-storey commercial buildings. Both the previous and revised proposals for the new development, dubbed Hickory Tree Tower, would intensify an under-utilized commercial strip in an area seeing many planning applications on adjacent blocks.
The most recent design by DIALOG has significantly increased the tower’s height from 84.70m to 136.79m, and from 25 storeys to 40. With the number of units going from 253 to 446, this allows for a greater residential GFA of 31,151m², compared to 19,386m² previously.
Hickory Tree Tower’s podium is proposed to remain seven storeys high. The new design (first image in this story, above) calls for the tower to rise uniformly after stepping back at the eighth floor to allow for an outdoor amenity area. The new design also offers additional amenity space, from jumping from 1,025m² in the original plan to 1,784m² in the new one.
The revised tower design does away with much of the curvilinear design that highlighted the irregular land shape, and instead would feature a more rectangular shape facing Weston Road. Yet there remains a remnant of the previous design; the south side of the building facing the Humber River would feature an angular flourish away from the main road along Wilby Crescent.
The residential lobby would face Wilby Crescent on the building’s west side, while 444m² of retail space would face Weston Road. Just as in the 2022 submission, the 2023 resubmission proposes four levels of underground parking. The number of spaces has increased from 87 to 113 for residents and from 16 to 25 for visitors. The revised proposal does away with the four retail parking spaces. Storage for 447 bicycles is included in the design.
The site is well-served by TTC bus routes leading to multiple subway stations also being within a short walking distance of the Weston GO station which is served by the UP Express as well, providing convenient access to Downtown Toronto, Pearson Airport, and other destinations along the GO Kitchener line.
Within a designated Major Transit Station Area (MTSA), the site is part of a neighbourhood evolving to feature a vibrant combination of commercial and residential buildings. The updated resubmission for Hickory Tree Tower reflects the intensification anticipated for MTSAs.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. If you’d like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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