Canada's Tallest U/C #11 - #30

[francely57]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

11. Centennial Place 176.0 Meters (Calgary)
12. Jamison Place 170 Meters (Calgary)
13. Absolute Wold 167 Meters (Mississauga) -
14. ArriVa 44 - 160 Meters (Calgary)
14 Minto Midtown 160 Meters (Toronto)
14. Uptown Residences - Yorkville 160 Meters (Toronto)
17. Success Tower 157 Meters (Toronto)
17 Toronto International Film Festival Tower 157 Meters (Toronto)
19. Residences at Hotel Georgia 156 Meters (Vancouver)
20. Absolute World 2 (151 Meters)
21. Fairmont Pacific Rim 140 Meters (Vancouver)
21. Murano South Tower 140 Meters (Toronto)
23. Epcor Tower 139.0 Meters (Edmonton)
24. Casa 138 Meters (Toronto)
25. The X Condominium 137 Meters (Toronto)
25. Montage -Cityplace 137 Meters (Toronto)
27. Telus Tower 136 Meters (Toronto)
28. Astoria on Tenth 130 Meters (Calgary)
29. Crystal Blu Condominiums 129 Meters (Toronto)
30. Capitol Residences 126 Meters (Vancouver)
30. Luna Vista 126 Meters (Toronto)
32. Patina 125 Meters (Vancouver)
33. Five West East Tower 124 Meters (Calgary)
34. W Building 121 Meters (Vancouver)
35. Le 400 Sherbrooke Ouest 120 Meters (Montreal)
35. Verve 120 Meters (Toronto)

400 Sherbrooke W, February 27, 2008

at 17 floors, 20 more to go

[WhipperSnapper]

Nothing in Vancouver was allowed to go above 450ft and you're complaining that nothing will ever surpass nearly 1000ft?? I dont think thats a fair comparison at all!!

I think it is in the case of Toronto's CBD to Vancouver's Downtown Centre

Remember we are talking about the fact that hight restriction policies have negatively effected Vancouver's height more than Toronto's.

And I'm disagreeing. Toronto would undoubtably have Chicago's skyline or pretty close to it were it not for the height restriction policies of the last 30 years that continue today. That Aura and One Bloor may get approved is pretty damn surreal. Sure we have built three 500 footers and have another dozen or so under construction however were it not for a genuine fear of heights here, that number would be more than double just on the projects that were built fatter and lower than intially proposed. (Waterclub, New York Towers, Pantages, etc.)

I mean lets not all forget about Bing Thom's 600ft crystal tower which was shot down becuase an 'architectural finger' strayed 10 ft into a viewcone.

10 feet?!? Dude, I can think of 3 projects (off the top of my head no less) that were forced to revise plans as their proposals fell a few feet over some arbitrary recommendation from planning staff (one was 2.5 feet!!)

[Boris2k7]

Re: Height limits, etc.

Here in Calgary, we do not have height limits or view cones. What we do have is a shadowing bylaw (for the Bow River Pathway) as well as density restrictions (mainly FAR).

In our approved Centre City Plan, though, there is an advocacy for sight lines of key landmarks down certain streets (ex. Calgary Tower down Centre Street) as well as expansions in the shadowing bylaw to include lesser parks with their own lower class of restrictions. On an interesting note, though, while the CCP supports the consideration of ordinary viewlines and shadowing from highrises, it also advocates that taller, thinner buildings should be built rather than shorter, bulkier structures.

Mainly, though, the focus is on density restrictions, which strikes me as being much more fair and less arbitrary than height limits.

[WhipperSnapper]

a belated P.S.

I like the way Toronto is developing. Just saying there is a reason to the stumpy, large floorplates of 12 to 20 units per floor in Toronto instead of taller, slimmer towers in the 8 to 10 range.

Like I said, the biggest reason there are twice as many highrises now in the inner suburbs than in the former City of Toronto has to do with council putting a moratorium on new construction as well as slapping a 35m height limit across the entire downtown during the peak of the biggest highrise boom in Canadian history. Without this occurance, It's more than likely Toronto would have a Polish infused skyline as high as Chicagos

[wild wild west]

/\It's ridiculous for people to be so anti-height in such a large city. I guess it's even worse in San Francisco and Boston though.

So we've covered Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary. What do the other major Canadian cities have as far as height restrictions?

[caltrane74]

Montreal has a mountain that buildings are in theory not supposed to be taller than.

I don't know what the effectiveness of this limit is of course. Cause I'm not from Montreal.

[Aylmer]

Ottawa doesn't have one BUT IT'S HIGHLY UNRECOMENDED.

said the councillor with the gun in his pocket.

[WhipperSnapper]

It's ridiculous for people to be so anti-height in such a large city.

It's good in many ways. Most projects do end up improved during the process in which every NIMBY get there say.

I also found a Star article on St Jamestown's construction from the late sixties while tearing out carpet a few years ago. It was very Dubai-esque with the accommpanying construction photo and with talk of an even bigger better super block in the works. Many of these apartment blocks weren't being built by multi-million dollar corporations but average joes making a decent wage (that are now multi-million dollar corporations) However, Toronto would be uglier, far colder and blander if all of this actually got built (although I could live with the 600m Marion proposal)

[koops65]

Kitchener city council recently approved a plan for the city in which the downtown core has no height restrictions of any kind. Unfortunately, the chances of any buildings being built here that would make it onto this list are beyond slim...

[francely57]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

Montreal has a mountain that buildings are in theory not supposed to be taller than.

I don't know what the effectiveness of this limit is of course. Cause I'm not from Montreal.

Our huge mount Royal has its summit ~230 m above the river.
Since most of the financial district (where towers are allowed to go over 120 m) sits a bit above the river, the current limit there is reached by the 1000 de la Gauchetière, 205 m.

Limits around the financial district vary (from 120 to 60 m), so that downtown roughly makes the shape of a hill as big as mount Royal.


Where 400 Sherbrooke W stands, the limit is 120 m, so by being ~120 m tall the building didn't have to go through MTL's very effective NYMBY process.

[Rico Rommheim]

Not only that but the 400 Sherbrooke was a complete surprise, a real coup. The whole process was secretive until it popped up out of nowhere to become the tallest project in Montreal since 1992. Remember had it not been for supermanmtl we would of been caught off guard.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by goodlookin'

And I'm disagreeing. Toronto would undoubtably have Chicago's skyline or pretty close to it were it not for the height restriction policies of the last 30 years that continue today. That Aura and One Bloor may get approved is pretty damn surreal. Sure we have built three 500 footers and have another dozen or so under construction however were it not for a genuine fear of heights here, that number would be more than double just on the projects that were built fatter and lower than intially proposed. (Waterclub, New York Towers, Pantages, etc.)

You're missing the point again, I'm saying that Vanocuver would have more buildings on the 11-30 list than it currently does. As you have said Toronto's buildings are getting chopped down,which I dont deny, but they are being chopped down to a level that is still in the top 30. Vancouver's are getting chopped far below that level.

Originally Posted by goodlookin'

10 feet?!? Dude, I can think of 3 projects (off the top of my head no less) that were forced to revise plans as their proposals fell a few feet over some arbitrary recommendation from planning staff (one was 2.5 feet!!)

Just for the record, I'm not talking about floor space, im talking aboout a 10ft tall 'finger'... an antenna, which caused the entire project to collapse and the land was sold and nothing has been built to date. The amount of buildings that had to be resized is so numerous it would encompass almost every building built near the height limit downtown in the last 20 odd years.

[wild wild west]

Originally Posted by AylmerOptimist

Ottawa doesn't have one BUT IT'S HIGHLY UNRECOMENDED.

said the councillor with the gun in his pocket.

I believe Ottawa used to have one though, which was removed in recent years.

When I lived in Ottawa, shortly after Helmut Jahn built the Liberty Place towers in Philadelphia (which were the first to surpass the statue of William Penn atop Philly City Hall in height), he designed a building that would have been about 35 floors and 500' or so in height for Ottawa. Unfortunately, the majority of Council opposed a height relaxation (plus the local real estate market was going into the crapper) so it never materialized.

Considering the greater Ottawa office market is larger than Calgary or Vancouver's, I would expect Ottawa could have potentially ended up with a downtown skyline comparable to those cities if it hadn't had that height limit.

[Jay in Cowtown]

Originally Posted by Boris2k7

Re: Height limits, etc.

Here in Calgary, we do not have height limits or view cones. What we do have is a shadowing bylaw (for the Bow River Pathway) as well as density restrictions (mainly FAR).

.

Yup, if Encana had bought land pretty much anywhere west of where they did... we probably would have seen something alot closer to a 1000' tower.

[towerguy3]

Ritz Carlton in Vancouver is just a shallow hole in ground but will start digging next month.

a pic of Shangri-La can be see at numinous.ca click webcam!

[towerguy3]

Eat your heart out Toronto! We got the mountains!

http://www.numinous.ca/Webcam%20Page.htm

[LeftCoaster]

???

You are such an idiot towerguy.

[WhipperSnapper]

Just for the record, I'm not talking about floor space

who says I'm talking about floorspace

You're missing the point again, I'm saying that Vanocuver would have more buildings on the 11-30 list than it currently does. As you have said Toronto's buildings are getting chopped down,which I dont deny, but they are being chopped down to a level that is still in the top 30. Vancouver's are getting chopped far below that level

No dude ... you're missing the point. The list's cutoff would undoubtably be 30 to 50m higher were it not for Toronto fear of heights. The whole, "getting chopped down to a level that is still in the top 30" is nonsense. While I could see more 40 to 50 storey buildings in Vancouver were the limits lifted, I really don't see that many more 50 to 70 storey buildings.

Developments like Aura, Spire, One Bloor, M5V are setting a precedence in areas previously limited to buildings half the size so as long as investors continue to line up, the list's minimum cut-off may just hit the 600ft range down the road.

[Delirium]

Originally Posted by wild wild west

Considering the greater Ottawa office market is larger than Calgary or Vancouver's, I would expect Ottawa could have potentially ended up with a downtown skyline comparable to those cities if it hadn't had that height limit.

i can't speak for calgary but vancouver has a considerably larger office market than ottawa.

metro vancouver has about 51 million sq/ft of space


metro ottawa has about 34 million

from www.colliers.ca Q4 2007 office report

[eemy]

Originally Posted by Delirium

i can't speak for calgary but vancouver has a considerably larger office market than ottawa.

metro vancouver has about 51 million sq/ft of space

metro ottawa has about 34 million

42% of Ottawa's office space is owner-occupied and isn't listed in commercial office market reports, and I don't believe that the Colliers report includes Gatineau. Apparently the combined Ottawa-Gatineau area has a total of 65.4 million sq ft and Ottawa alone has 58.2 million sq ft.
(http://www.ottawa.ca/city_services/s...ction05_en.pdf)