Steel. The exterior diamonds are the load-bearing elements, freeing the interiors to be completely open-plan with no unsightly columns. Apparently, wind studies have already been done, and the winds at street level will be less than they are now, presumably due to the extra space for sidewalks...

It IS set back, in terms of functionality. The structural exoskeleton carries the weight of the building, so the ground level floor was able to be pulled back from the street enough to allow for extra-wide sidewalks on Yonge and on Bloor.

I just looked at a map of the immediate area, and it's looking like shadowing of Jesse Ketchum Park would not be a significant issue after all, even at the proposed height. From the perspective of the closest point of Jesse Ketchum Park (the southeast corner), the silhouettes of the proposed...

Time to change the thread title, or is it best to wait for the results of the OMB / pre-OMB negotiations?

While I am sorry to see the near-twin "bent" towers go, overall I feel that this is very much an improvement. The designs now all look sufficiently different from each other that they avoid the Cityplace cookie-cutter syndrome, and what appears to be a significantly reduced total density should...

Three possibilities I can think of: 1. 90% likelihood in my opinion : They are counting the CN Tower as a building. 2. 9% likelihood in my opinion : Somebody goofed. 3. 1% likelihood in my opinion : They are aware of an even taller proposal still under wraps. Or possibly an actively worked...

From this thread on Jan 20th::

Well, they are apparently planning to start excavating the moment they get the required permits. But KWT has strongly implied while on television (or so it's reported in one of the posts far up-thread) that she's going to delay the permitting process for as long as she can get away with it...

Now that's interesting. Let's say that the total building cost for The One is $850 million (that's the only hard number I am aware of, the $1 billion estimate appears to be a rounded-up version), and 20% of that is allocated to the retail portion. So 560 units must share $680 million in building...

The above image, brightened, rotated and cropped:

According to this slide, there will be 2 mechanical levels just below the penthouses, one in mid-tower, and three just above the retail floors. Added to the residential, amenity and retail levels, that's 81 floors.

And sometimes the Design Review Panel too. I still recall the proposal for a tower next to the Distillery District that the DRP admitted was "world-class", but still rejected.

Trying to get the number of floors to add up to 80 without success: Penthouse -- 3 floors Mechanical -- 2 floors Residential -- 29 floors Mechanical -- 1 floor Residential -- 33 floors Amenity -- 2 floors Mechanical -- 3 floors Retail -- 8 floors That's 81 floors by my count...

Excuse me? He is actually taking a big financial risk here. He has to find a multi-millionaire buyer for each of the 560 units. This has to be a major portion of the top-end condo market in Toronto -- look how long it took to find buyers for the bigger units at the other large hotel/condo...

That is something I wonder about too. Wasn't the Holt Renfrew Tower at 50 Bloor Street West chopped from 277m to 230m because of shadowing on the Jesse Ketchum school yards? If The One gets approved at 317m, I can see Holt Renfrew (literally right across the street) going to the OMB to get back...

In my opinion, the two structures compliment each other: a hard-edged geometric design on the west side, and a softer, curvilinear design on the east side. The One is somewhat taller, but not so much so that it dwarfs One Bloor East. I would love to see a render that includes both buildings...