YORK CENTRE – ICE CONDOMINIUMS

Developer: Block 9B Developments Limited A Consortium of Cadillac Fairview Corporation and Lanterra Developments Limited
Architect: Architects Alliance

The project, consisting of two high-rise residential condominium towers, and future office tower, is located on the west side of York Street, between Brenner Boulevard and Gardiner/Lakeshore Boulevard.

There are five levels of subgrade parking, with the perimeter foundation walls constructed adjacent to a continuous caisson wall at three sides of the property. The shear walls, of the towers, are carried down through the subgrade parking garage and are founded on strip footings, bearing on sound shale bedrock, capable of safely sustaining a pressure of 5000 kilopascals (104,400 pounds per square foot). Similarly, columns, at the perimeter of the towers, are carried down through the substructure and are founded on spread footings, bearing on the same sound shale bedrock.

The south tower rises sixty levels, to the high roof, above three mechanical levels, and the north tower rises seventy levels, to the high roof, above three mechanical levels, from a common two level podium structure. The top mechanical levels, in each of the towers, house a water reservoir which acts as a motion damper tank to reduce lateral accelerations resulting from wind. The water in the tanks is heated to keep it from freezing, and the water is also to be employed for fire fighting.

The wind and seismic forces are resisted by the interaction of the shear walls and the central elevators and stairs cores. The majority of the reinforced concrete shear walls are 400 mm thick in the seventy storey tower, and 350 mm thick in the sixty storey tower, both for their full height, and are cast with concretes which range in strength at 28 days, from 65 MPa, below the third floor, to 30 MPa in the upper most levels.

The residential floors from the third floor up are designed as 200 mm thick flat plates reinforced with reinforcing steel with a yield stress of 400 MPa. The concrete strength at 28 days, in the interior slabs, varies from 45 MPa in the lower floors to 25 MPa in the upper floors. However, the concrete strength for all slabs exposed to weather is 30 MPa with 6 percent to 8 percent entrained air.

There are two banks of elevators, in each tower, with three elevators in each bank, served by a common elevator lobby, but only one of the banks, in each tower, continues above the transfer floors, at the approximate mid-height of the respective towers.

Both towers are clad with glass curtain walls with full storey high windows and doors.