Toronto planners have rejected an ambitious redevelopment proposal, the latest salvo in a city-building saga that began with the plan's first iteration in 2020.

Plans to redevelop 372-378 Yonge Street, just south of Gerrard, evolved from a curvaceous 74-storey plan proposed four years ago to the most recent simplified 85-storey plan tabled in October 2023.

The planned 278-metre-tall tower, designed by architects Dialog, would replace a row of businesses at the southwest corner of Yonge and Gerrard.

Enormous 85-storey condo tower proposed to transform Toronto intersection🤯 https://t.co/UyAY2sAwga #Toronto #TorontoRealEstate

— blogTO (@blogTO) December 12, 2023

The current site of two-storey frontages along Yonge Street includes a group of heritage buildings: a heritage-designated Art Deco structure on the corner at 378 Yonge Street dating back to 1930, and a row of 19th-century Victorian storefront facades at 372 through 376 Yonge.

Updates to the plan last fall followed the City's move to designate two of the three Victorians on Yonge under the Ontario Heritage Act in March 2023, which would add further safeguards against demolition.

Most recently, developers Yonge and Gerrard Partners, Turbo-Mac, and Trimed Investments filed an application to alter these heritage properties under Section 33 of the Ontario Heritage Act in early February, all as their proposal is embroiled in the provincial appeals process.

In a refusal report dated March 7, the City's Acting Senior Manager of Heritage Planning, Urban Design and City Planning recommends that City Council refuse the application, claiming that the current plan would be detrimental to the protected heritage buildings on site.

The application proposes to retain the Art Deco corner building in full, in-situ facade preservations for the buildings at 374 and 376 Yonge, and demolition of the building at 372 Yonge — the latter of which was not included in the City's move for heritage designation last year.

The letter cites planning policies, including the province's Planning Act, as well as both the 2020 Provincial Policy Statement and Growth Plan.

In addition to the provincial policies planners identified as not supporting the proposal, officials also flagged the project as being at odds with the City of Toronto's Official Plan and a site-specific area policy covering Yonge Street from Queen Street to north of Gerrard Street.

The refusal report concludes by stating the project "will have a negative impact with regard to the heritage attributes of scale, form, and massing."

It adds that "character-defining elements would not be conserved" and that the plan doesn't provide the necessary building stepbacks to preserve the street-level scale of the existing buildings.

The report further slams the proposal for "undermining" the integrity of the heritage buildings' ground floors due to the extent of the proposed demolitions at 374 and 376 Yonge Street, "which impacts our understanding of the buildings as being discrete buildings."

The letter closes by stressing that, because the plan does not conform to the aforementioned policies, the proposal "should be refused."

Regardless of whether or not the tower is approved in a modified form, the Yonge and Gerrard intersection is primed to become a new focal point for the skyline in the coming years as several sky-scraping proposals work their way through the planning process in the immediate vicinity.