Canada's First Supertall Skyscraper is in Crisis

this skyscraper could change Canada forever when complete the one will be the country's first ever super tool setting a precedent for the future and Toronto will be home to a beautiful new skyscraper initially predicted to cost more than a billion Canadian dollars it'll offer 306 M of condo hotel and Retail luxury and if you're fancy living here then you better have pretty Deep Pockets the lavish homes cost anywhere from3 to more than $30 million but what's a few million when you have the chance to live in Canada's tallest skyscraper the one really is a recordbreaker

well I say is it might be on the prestigious corner of Yung and bla the one should have been a slam dunk for the city ground was broken in 2017 and it was expected to be a game Cher not just for Toronto but for the whole of Canada but if you take a stroll down this road today you'll see it still looks a lot like a building site what was sold as a 306 m sanctury in the clouds is currently an incomplete block of concrete and steel on the corner of one of Toronto's busiest intersections

and that's because the one's attempted climb to the top of Toronto's Skyline has been very difficult it's in a lot of debt well behind schedule and earlier this year the lead developer was given the boot from his own project but this isn't just about saving the one from crisis it's about securing the legacy of what was meant to be Canada's first super tool Skyscraper the corner of Yong and Blau is a key intersection in Toronto it's a major Hub in Midtown where two iconic Toronto streets meet it's the ideal city living experience if you've got

the cash full of pen houses condos and glass facades exclusivity really is the name of the game you really couldn't pick a better location for a super tall condo complex like the one and it's well on its way towards the skies above of Toronto now standing at more than 250 M we can see how it's being constructed running on the outside the horizontal and vertical frame of the structure is exposed on the facade providing visual distinction from any buildings nearby in its makeup a series of ties climb up at regular intervals where the mechanical floors

are found eight giant exterior pillars then support the tower from top to bottom and help provide additional open space in sight this Frame hangs the floors by the distinctive diag beams and every six levels there are two diagonal braces on each corner now as with any product of this scale the plans were tinkered with quite a bit before work on the one could begin and it was largely because of the weather all skyscrapers have to pass a wind test before being commissioned and that's done using a model of the proposed building testing was carried out

by performance engineers rwdi and the results highlighted pretty intense wind pressures as a result it was decided that much stronger materials were needed but but that's not all a very neat piece of Kit called a tuned Mass damper is going to be added at the top it's basically a 600 ton pendulum a bit like these as the one sways in the wind the pendulum swings to counteract that movement harving the amount the tower moves by not all skyscrapers are quite so lucky but that wind has to go somewhere you can see here the cutaways in

the mechanical flaw they help disrupt the flow of the wind reducing the amount of pressure it places on the building and keeping people below from blowing over a fairly important factor for any Tower like this as we can see work is well and truly underway but clearly there's some way to go before the one is ready for its glitzy inhabitants to move in in fact that Landmark should have been hit way back in 2022 so what's the hold up well there are actually quite a few reasons but before investigating why the one remains incomplete it's

worth winding back a bit and looking at its context in the Widder City it may be architecturally unique in Toronto but it's just one piece of a much bigger jigsaw you see the city's in the midst of a construction Purple Patch it has a quite frankly ridiculous number of cranes in operation at well over 200 that's four times anywhere else in North America and while that's partially the mark of a growing destination it's also indicative of a problem facing the whole country a housing crisis by 2030 it's thought Canada will need an extra 5 million

homes and Toronto isn't immune from that Dynamic are more people moving here or just more people moving to the city the population is Rising by nearly 1% every year and housing just can't keep up previous zoning laws known as the yellow belts haven't helped either they traditionally saw large sections of Toronto's residential areas reserved for detached and semi-detached single family homes that's not ideal for tackling an influx of people in need of affordable places to live that's slowly changing and you could now build four units per one plot in the yellow belt but it isn't

happening fast enough hence the upward climb of Residential Properties in the heart of Toronto where you can build tool often in the form of Condominiums like the one but therein lies another problem Canada's condo crash back in the late 1970s Toronto experienced a boom of condo development that changed the face of the city forever making it a high-rise Metropolis but in recent years that condo momentum has been stuttering with many of the towers no longer fit for purpose it turned out that most of these condos were actually built with investors in mind that meant that

they were small and they were basically bought to be rented out so they became the the de facto source of most of the rental stuff in the city for decades actually but because they were so small um you know they weren't the kinds of places that families would live or people who want to live permanently so they've taken on a kind of uh temporary feel to them so it's safe to say the condo Market isn't in great shape as of early 2024 60 of the towers are on hold in the city and various others have

been cancelled you may have heard it's been a dismal period for condo sales across the GTA now in Canada's biggest cities there's a ton of condos like this struggling to sell developers are struggling with high interest rates not to lofty inflation and rent isn't meeting ownership costs the one is no exception this project is facing soaring debts climbing to $1.7 billion and ACR debts like this are why some developers in the city have been going out of business Mahi developments isn't shutting down but as of early 2024 its lead Sam Mahi is no longer managing

the one's construction it follows the appointment of Alvarez and Marcel's receiver to get the tower back on track and bes besides the climbing debt they reported that the relationship between Mr Mahi and his partner on the one Jenny Coco had become acrimonious Mr Mahi and Alvarez and Marcel didn't respond to the bm's request for comments the one has been a hot bed of issues and that means construction has well overrun its Target date remember that 2022 completion aim well by the 4th of October 2023 only 40 flaw have been P but given its k location

in the city the money spent so far and the plans to create more apartments in the upper levels it'll be a surprise if the one isn't eventually complet it it's already partway there and as we know major skyscrapers are never left unfinished or [Music] unopened but the delays could also cause more problems than debts and irritating tenants and investors this should have been Canada's first Super T skyscraper securing its Legacy in the history books but it may miss its moment under the spotlight because of this the sky tower The Duel of Toronto's latest major developments

Pinnacle 1 when they first started building it was planned to stand 313 M high but the developers found that boring so in 2022 they asked if they could increase the height approval was given meaning it'll stand more than 340 M tall and it's well on the way to those dizzying Heights it could even be finished in 2025 and so the race is on for the one to reach super tool status first but who knows when it's going to be finished and ready to be lived in senior lenders want to wash their hands of the failing

build looking to sell for nothing less than $1.2 billion the trouble is estimates reported by the Toronto Star currently put at half that value the star is also reporting that tency contracts could be torn up so the apartments can be sold at higher rates even if that does recuit some Investments anyone who takes on the one will have to go about finding a lead retail tenant Apple was due to move in taking 9,000 squ ft of space on the ground floor but because of the ongoing delays the tech Mega giant pulled out leaving a gaping

hole in the floor plan of course for any of this to matter construction of the skyscraper actually needs to be finished the last time I went by there which was days ago the construction seemed to be underway now I didn't stop and take a really close look but it's it's too big a project and too important uh a neighborhood to let it just sit there although we've done that before but I think it will eventually um get done one thing's for certain in the next 2 years Canada will have its first Super T skyscraper we

just don't know which one it's going to be the one has faced billions of dollars of debt receiver ship a change of management and mounting delays who will end up living and working here still isn't entirely clear only time will tell if the one ever manages to fulfill its destiny and become Canada's first super tool skyscraper don't forget that we're inspiring the next generation of Builders through our investment into brick borrow a fantastic Lego subscription service you can learn more and get started today over at brick.com and as always guys if you enjoyed this video

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