If you go big, we’ll go bigger

Yonge-Gerrard project stretches to 78 storeys, edging T.O. rival’s 75

SUSAN PIGG

The battle of the biggest has just escalated three storeys.

Canderel’s Aura condo project at Yonge and Gerrard Sts. has regained the title of tallest residential skyscraper in Canada thanks to a committee of adjustment decision that will see it stretch to 78 storeys once construction is completed in 2014.

That means Aura will top Tridel’s 75-storey Ten York condo project, announced late last year, which appeared close to taking the tallest title.

Aura is also untouchable on another level: It boasts an $18.3 million, 11,370 square-foot penthouse, the biggest in Canada, with unimpeded views of the city.

Well, at least for now.

The committee of adjustment decision is “massive,” says Canderel vice-president of sales, Riz Dhanji — just like Aura, which is expected to help kick-start the rejuvenation of Yonge St. north of Dundas, along with the new Ryerson University facilities planned for the area.

Aura will not only expand to 985 units, thanks to the additional floors, but will have four storeys of retail. That will be the first stacked retail outside of the Eaton Centre, with more to come in a dozen or so new condo projects planned for Toronto’s main street.

Some seven condo projects, totaling almost 3,800 new residential units, are close to or already under construction on or close to Yonge St. south of Bloor, including Aura, says Ben Myers of condo research firm Urbanation.

Another seven, with a potential 3,565 units, are in the planning stages, many incorporating heritage properties.

It’s an unprecedented level of residential construction along the subway corridor and will eventually stretch all the way up to Richmond Hill, said Myers.

The height hype over which was taller, Aura or Ten York, had become a bit of a joke between good friends Dhanji and Tridel vicepresident Jim Ritchie.

But it mattered more to Dhanji, given that black hoardings surrounding the ongoing construction — the skeleton of the building is already up to the 15th floor — boast that Aura is Canada’s tallest residential building.

“When Jim made the Ten York announcement, I did have a smile on my face,” says the good-natured Dhanji. “And, who knows, he may get the last laugh.

” But 75 storeys is it for Ten York, insists Ritchie. It’s all the tiny waterfront area site can handle.