Location: 49 Yonge Street, Toronto
Developer: SmartCentres
Architect: architectsAlliance
If you’ve traveled through downtown Toronto and have ever had a craving for pub grub, you might have stopped into the Irish Embassy Pub & Grill near Yonge and Wellington streets. Now, the heritage building that houses the restaurant could become part of a new mixed-use tower that was recently proposed for the site.
Earlier this month, a zoning by-law amendment application was submitted to the City of Toronto to build a 60-storey mixed-use high-rise with 258 suites at 49 and 51 Yonge Street. News broke of development plans for the Irish Embassy Pub a little under two weeks ago, but the official development documents became publicly available this week.
A representative for the Irish Embassy Pub said to blogTO that the restaurant remains closed for now with plans to reopen in the new year.
“We will see how things work out as developments can take years to plan. At some stage, we may have to relocate to another prime downtown location but it may not be for a while yet,” the representative told the publication.
The developer on the application, SmartCentres, is also known for its work on Transit City in Vaughan.
The rectangular development site is located at the northeast corner of the Yonge and Wellington streets. A four-storey commercial building, currently home to the Irish Embassy Pub & Grill on the ground floor, occupies the lot.
The structure at 49 Yonge Street was designated in 1979 as a heritage building under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act according to the application’s planning rationale. The structure was built in 1872 and used as the former Bank of British North America. The building at 51 Yonge Street is a listed heritage building.
The development application would add a 56-storey residential tower to the existing four-storey buildings, totalling 60 storeys. Both the listed and designated heritage buildings would be “wholly retained and incorporated into the podium of the proposed residential tower.” The only changes that would be made to the 49 Yonge Street façade would be on the east side of that building to accommodate a widening of the adjacent lane. As per the rationale, the existing office and commercial space at 49 and 51 Yonge Street would be maintained.
The tower would be built in a “square shape” to reflect the shape and orientation of the existing property and heritage buildings. Architectural setbacks on the fifth and sixth floors would create a reveal to transition between the heritage buildings and tower above.
Of the 258 units proposed in the tower, the breakdown would include 152 one-bedroom, 80 two-bedroom and 26 three-bedroom suites.
Office uses would be incorporated from the second to fifth floors of the tower for a total of 1,701 square metres. Setbacks on the 22nd floor would make room for a 254 square-metre outdoor amenity area on the roof of the 21st level. Additional indoor amenity spaces are slated for the sixth, 21st and 22nd floors. The entrances to the office and residential components of the tower would be built off of Yonge Street.
While the project would not provide any parking for cars, two levels of below-grade parking would be provided for 284 bicycles.
In the neighbourhood, sales are still open for the penthouse collection at 88 Scott, while construction continues at Twenty Lombard.
