Dancing onto the skyline of Mississauga
Exchange District Condos will add a sharp profile and public piazza to the city’s flourishing downtown
Move over, Marilyn. It’s Fred’s turn in the spotlight.
Nicknamed “Marilyn Monroe,” the famed, curvaceous twin residential towers in Mississauga are about to get a new neighbour: Exchange District Condos, by Camrost Felcorp — contrasting, modular-designed highrises in a master-planned, multiuse community, across from Square One Shopping Centre.
Dubbed the “Fred Astaire” after Hollywood’s legendary song-and-dance man, the first 60-storey, metal-and-glass skyscraper will be constructed with offset symmetrical blocks rotated 90 degrees every six floors.
Officially named Tower EX1, it will be one of four residential buildings planned for the three-acre site southwest of the Marilyns — Absolute World condos — at Hurontario St., between Burnhamthorpe and Rathburn Rds.
Fancy footwork could well be the theme for the project whose ground-level focal point will be a raised, multipurpose piazza choreographed for foot traffic by experts from U.K.based BDP Architects.
Wide stairways and sidewalks will lead to amenities that include two-storey restaurants, a grocery store, shops, patios and cafés.
“We started from the ground up to design the whole pedestrian experience,” explains Joseph Feldman, director of development for Camrost Felcorp.
Created as a dynamic, multiuse community with a Yorkville-type vibe — “a destination, ultimately, within the centre of downtown, the area that people flock to” — the development is
designed to appeal to young families and professionals, “a demographic looking for a lifestyle component to where they live,” Feldman says.
It’s what buyer, Ramzi Cotran, 24, is looking for.
“What’s super-important is not forgoing my active lifestyle,” he says of fitness and recreational facilities that will serve his social activities, including dining out, as well as playing basketball and running.
Cotran, an account manager for a consumer packaged goods company, is in the process of purchasing a one-bedroom, 515-sq.-ft. unit in the Exchange District.
He currently rents a condo in downtown Toronto and says he’s looking forward to exchanging his “frustrating commute” for a 15-minute bus ride.
“Downtown Toronto is getting way too expensive. The numbers don’t make sense at all,” says Cotran, who’s paying $400,000 for his suite in Tower EX1— about half what he thinks his comparable rental would sell for.
Feldman anticipates about 3,000 people will eventually call the Exchange District home when the four buildings’ combined 2,000 units are completed in six or seven years. The towers will be 30, 38, 60 and 72 storeys.
With prices starting at $400,000, suites will range from 420 to 900 square feet and have 12-foot-deep terraces.
For architect Henry Burstyn of IBI Group, the shape of the skyscrapers was a challenge from the get-go.
“The Marilyn towers, in our mind, represented a turning point — an awakening for the city,” he says. “They raised the bar in terms of architecture.”
The plan was to complement the curvy condominiums with the same feeling of movement but “more angular, modular and robust,” Burstyn explains, adding the finished product will be “quite dramatic, an instantly recognizable form on the skyline.
“We’re affectionately calling (the first tower) the Fred Astaire.”
Feldman calls the design “a genius idea,” noting the cubes are “very efficient to build.”
The three other buildings will be variations on the concept and “share the same language,” according to Burstyn. Each tower will have a different coloured illuminated cap on its roof; EX1’s will be fuchsia.
The company’s collaboration with BDP Group allowed them to conceive the central pedestrian plaza that will connect the quartet of towers, he says. A boutique hotel is proposed for a later date.
EX1 will share 20,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities — including a basketball half-court — fitness facilities, rooftop garden and indoor pool with spa and steam room, a games room and lounge, outdoor garden, seating and fire pits.
The podium’s lower floors will accommodate a double-height lobby, retail and commercial space.
EX1 will have its own meeting rooms and business centre as well as a roof garden patio, private party room and catering kitchen connected to the terrace.
The Exchange District is part of Downtown21, a 700-acre, five-point urban plan in the heart of Mississauga.