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Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) has submitted a new plan where a previously 29-storey mixed-use affordable housing rental tower was approved, now advancing a Zoning By-law Amendment for a 37-storey building at 150 Queens Wharf Road designed by the renowned Karakusevic Carson Architects of Britain with Toronto’s Teeple Architects as Architect of Record. Part of the Housing Now program, the revised plan maintains 134 affordable rental units, exceeding the affordability commitment of the earlier approval despite a reduction in total unit count.
The site near Bathurst and Fort York Boulevard is within the Front–Spadina Protected Major Transit Station Area (a future GO station, not yet under construction), while King–Bathurst station on Ontario Line 3 is currently under construction to the north.
The site is a 0.15-hectare City-owned parcel south of the Union Station Rail Corridor and immediate east of the future Lower Garrison Creek Park. The final undeveloped lot within this portion of the Railway Lands West, the block is currently vacant and framed by a network of parks, community facilities, and high-density Concord CityPlace residential buildings.
A site-specific rezoning for 150 Queens Wharf Road was adopted in 2021 through By-law 1067-2024, advancing a 29-storey mixed-use rental tower designed by DTAH Architects for TCHC and CreateTO. Shifts in market conditions, updated program objectives, and new affordability incentives have prompted a revised approach. Urban Strategies submitted the Zoning By-law Amendment application on behalf of TCHC.
The revised proposal reworks the approved massing with a 37-storey tower reaching 140.9m, replacing the 29-storey, 96m scheme. The new tower design adopts a rounded, 12-sided floor-plate of roughly 800m², up from 750m². A simplified two-storey podium replaces the earlier multi-level base. Floor Space Index would increase from 14.2 to 16.5 times coverage of the lot, with a total Gross Floor Area jump from 22,300m² to 25,491m², including 349m² of non-residential space for the secured EarlyON Child and Family Centre.
Half of the units would be designated affordable, with the total count reduced from 282 to 268 while eliminating studios and moving to larger one-, two-, and three-bedroom layouts. There would be 1,075m² of indoor amenity space paired with 162m² outdoors. Four elevators would serve the residential floors, yielding a ratio of one cab per 67 units, indicating good elevator service, even if one elevator is out of service.
The design retains two underground levels, though the overall parking supply is reduced substantially. The new plan provides 34 vehicular spaces (20 for residents and 14 for visitors) compared to 59 spaces in the earlier proposal. Bicycle parking would total 297 spaces, comprising 243 long-term and 54 short-term stalls, a slight reduction from the previous 305. The design also preserves the publicly accessible pedestrian connection linking Queens Wharf Road to the future Lower Garrison Creek Park, carried forward from the 2021 approval.
The site is positioned close to the 511 Bathurst streetcar, while cycling routes that run through CityPlace and Fort York. The under-construction King–Bathurst Station on the Ontario Line 3 is approximately 850m away, or about a 12-minute walk, and the Spadina–Front GO Station is planned about 750m to the east.
Multiple projects are planned within several blocks. To the south, 545 Lake Shore West is proposed at 21 storeys, while The Yards northwest of the site calls for three towers ranging from 12 to 39 storeys. Proposals at 689 and 675 King would rise 18 and 21 storeys, and the King–Bathurst Transit-Oriented Community North and South sites include two 25-storey towers now under construction. Northeast of the site, a cluster of mid-rise and high-rise proposals between 13 and 18 storeys sits alongside larger projects such as 433 Front West at 51 storeys, while the waylaid Rail Deck Development envisions nine towers from 36 to 72 storeys.
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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