A new office and rental tower with a unique geometric exterior could soon loom 65 storeys from the southeast corner of Simcoe and Wellington, just across the street from Toronto's esteemed Roy Thomson Hall.

Developer H&R REIT has had plans in the works for a massive mixed-use development at 145 Wellington Street West since 2019 that would see the current office tower town down and replaced with a much taller development.

Three years later, those plans would be reimagined into a flashy-looking proposal featuring a bold design from local architecture firm Partisans working alongside Turner Fleischer Architects, with elements influenced by the nearby concert hall.

That ambitious design was granted zoning approval back in 2022, but the project team has since filed additional Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment applications in October, now seeking an even taller and arguably less visually impressive building than what was pitched two years prior.

A diagrid pattern and elegant tapered mid-section, both inspired by the iconic concert hall across the intersection, wowed the public ahead of the project's 2022 zoning approval, but in typical Toronto fashion, the design has been quite noticeably scaled back.

Current (L) and 2022 (R) versions of the proposal.

What was once a very clear homage to Roy Thomson Hall now reads as the standard Toronto combination of a slender point tower atop a blocky podium with a slapped-on diagrid pattern, and losing the faceted details previously planned for the podium.

The pattern, previously expressed with projecting exterior members and sections carved away to form facets, is now planned simply as a frit pattern etched into the exterior glazing.

The earlier diagrid pattern will now be expressed on the glass, a much simpler option than previously proposed.

The updated design now appears more like a fusion of the mold-breaking statement pieces that lead architecture firm Partisans has built a name on and the mass-produced condo towers that fill the portfolio of architect of record Turner Fleischer.

And while you might be racing to call it a cheap-out, Matthew Kingston, Executive Vice President of Development and Construction at H&R, tells blogTO that the design changes stem from the decision to change the previously planned office component in the podium into additional residential space.

"Office spaces are more flexible, floor to floor, so a changing floorplan can be more easily accommodated," says Kingston, adding the team "also wanted to make sure we took a fresh look at the overall design."

While one could argue that the key design elements have been reduced since the 2022 plan, Kingston argues that the new design is actually an improvement

"Partisans and the team came up with a decorative lacework, which weaves more densely over the bottom of the building, ultimately reaching to the sky in a more dispersed and elegant expression," says Kingston.

When asked if rising material and labour costs or changes to interest rates since 2022 were a factor in these design changes, Kingston told blogTO "The changes are not based on taking the previous approval and value engineering it – this is an entirely new design from the ground up.  And we feel strongly that it would be an exceptional addition to the Toronto Skyline."

Aside from the switch from office space and the more evident visual changes, the one key change to the plan since 2022 is the addition of five storeys atop the previous 60-storey vision.

A 23-storey podium will be topped by a 24th-floor amenity level for residents of the building.

A total of 861 residential rental units are proposed, marking a significant increase from the 512 units proposed in 2022 and the 428 units that were planned within the previous version in 2019.

Like other changes to the plan, the drastic uptick in unit count is due to the removal of office space from the proposal, and understandable change amid a tumultuous time for the commercial real estate market in downtown Toronto.