Urban Toronto | February 23, 2023
For our second report covering UrbanToronto’s recent hardhat tour of The One, we have a fresh batch of images and some exciting information to share about progress on the tower’s lower levels. In today’s story, we are sharing what we learned from our walk-through of the third floor restaurant/event space and the soaring ground level retail space.
Guided through the site by Esteban Yanquelevech, Vice President of Construction at Mizrahi Developments, we arrived at the third level via the construction hoist servicing the tower’s lowest 6 floors. Stepping out, the double-height of the ceilings on this level is felt immediately, with a clearance of almost 20 feet making for a lofty space. Equally impossible to ignore are the massive structural steel columns, both canted and vertical, supporting the slabs above and below.
Secured around the steel is aluminium framing that will allow finishings to be mounted on the columns. From what we have seen in the renderings of the Andaz Hotel spaces on floors above (an Andaz Hotel space from a couple floors higher is pictured below), we believe a similar champagne-tinted treatment, like what will be seen on the exterior structure, will cover the columns here.
Some of the canted steel columns traveling through the third level begin at ground level, and some at level three. All continue up to a transfer slab at level five located at the base of the central tower elevator core. The purpose of the canted columns is simple: to enable the core of the building at grade to be free of columns. The canted columns accomplish this by distributing the load of the tower above from the transfer slab to the super columns around the tower’s perimeter.
The full extent of the unique structural steel configuration is a thoughtful overlapping of engineered systems and design that has become recognized as a calling card of the project’s ‘starchitect’ design firm, Foster + Partners.
Moving towards the periphery of the floor-plate, we got a closer look at another highly engineered area of the project, the corner hangers. As detailed in a previous story, this v-shaped steel structural element is fixed to the super-columns several floors above, and allows the corner of the slab to be hung from the super-columns in tension, eliminating the need for significant structural columns at the building’s corners.
The hangers are expressed on the inside of the building, while the image below shows the hangers expressed on the outside. The same champagne-tinted cladding from the exterior will also be mounted on the inside of the hangers, creating a continuous motif from outside to in. (While there has been some speculation in the UrbanToronto Forum that the colour of the aluminum that will cover the columns and hangers will change, we have been assured that the colour of the test pieces is the final colour.)
Returning to the hoist, we traveled back down to ground level, and made our way to the building’s Bloor Street frontage to enter possibly the most highly anticipated space of the project, the grade-level unit which will be home to a major anchor retailer. With a ceiling height of 40 feet, there was nothing to do but look up and let the dwarfing effect of the grand, cavernous room be experienced.
The canted columns are beginnings of what we saw on the third floor, terminating where the super-columns meet grade level, where the load from the tower above is ultimately being distributed. The columns’ entire surface has been sprayed with a fire resistant coating, in advance of similar aluminum framing and a final cladding finish like on the floors above.
Looking at the ground, we saw a number of openings in the floor slab which serve various purposes. The large square spaces, surrounded by safety fences and seen in the video above and the image below, create passages for the mechanical and electrical systems required to service the level, particularly air ducts. More difficult to see in the image below are the smaller circular holes spaced evenly around the floor-plate, to allow water drainage from planters ideal for a garden or trees.
The southwest corner of the space has a much larger opening, space for a staircase and elevator to reach the concourse level of the store, 20 feet below.
Finally, we were able to observe how the glazing around the retail space is fixed to the building. Unlike the unitized curtain wall panels above, these glass panels were designed specifically for the grade level, and are composed of 40ft sheets of structural glass, meaning they are fully self-supporting. In this way, the only requirement was to connect them to the building, which is achieved through the use of the black bracket connectors.
A drop ceiling will be installed to the height of the upper edge of the glass, as seen above, while a raised floor about a foot and a half above the ground floor slab will be constructed for the sales floor. All of these interior finishes could start to be applied partway through this year, and the store could open late in the year. To allow the opening while construction of the building continues above, a temporary hoarding roof will be built at the 17th floor level, extending from the mechanical section of the building to protect passersby below, such as what was done at the Aura project at Yonge and Gerrard in 2012.
That concludes our February 2023 hardhat tour of The One. Our coverage of the project will continue next month with more images of the building’s evolving exterior and updates on the progress of construction
Hardhat Tour Of The One
LAST UPDATE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY – 10/22/2020
BEFORE USING OUR SITE, PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY.
This Privacy Policy is applicable to Mizrahi Developments (“Company”) and sets out our policy on the gathering and use of information on this site and our other sites (collectively “Sites”). The Company is committed to providing safe web sites for visitors of all ages and has implemented this Privacy Policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to your privacy. The Company complies with Canadian Federal and Provincial privacy laws and regulations including the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act.
There may be links from our Sites to other web sites; note that this Privacy Policy applies only to our Sites and not to web sites of other companies or organizations to which our Sites may be linked. You must check on any linked sites for the privacy policy that applies to that site and/or make any necessary inquiries in respect of that privacy policy with the operator of the linked site. These links to third party websites are provided as a convenience and are for informational purposes only. The Company does not endorse, and is not responsible for, these linked websites.
Although you are not required to register to access our Sites, you may be asked to provide us with personal information when you visit certain sections of our Sites. Your use of our Sites signifies your acknowledgement and consent to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not continue to use our Sites. Your continued use of the Sites signifies your acceptance of these terms and any changes in effect at the time of use.
COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Personal Information is information about you that identifies you as an individual, for example, your name, address, e-mail address, or telephone number.
We collect information that you voluntarily provide to us through responses to surveys, search functions, questionnaires, feedback, Tell Your Story forms and the like. We may also ask you to provide additional information such as your e-mail address if you want to obtain additional services, information, participate in a contest or to resolve complaints or concerns.
