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AUGUST 2017 | 57 EY Tower RENDERINGS COURTESY KOHN PEDERSEN FOX ASSOCIATES (KPF) EY Tower by ROBIN BRUNET F rom inception to completion, Toronto's EY Tower (named for its main tenants Ernst & Young) had lofty expectations to fulfill. Oxford Properties Group not only intended the 40-storey, 900,000-square-foot facility to be the city's first Triple-A office building constructed to LEED standards, it also had to distinguish itself as the third component of the 2.5-million square foot Richmond- Adelaide Centre, which had recently completed over $18-million of capital improvements to its common areas. Additionally, EY Tower's base would consist of the restored south and east facade of the site's original occupant, the art deco Concourse Building, constructed in 1928. With Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), WZMH Architects, GBCA Architects and PCL Constructors Canada Inc. working at the top of their game, the completed EY Tower has two distinct visual identities. It is a beautiful addition to Toronto's 21st-century skyline, clad in silver- blue glass, and boasting significant chamfers and protrusions on the south, west and north walls, with a dramatic sloping cut to the crystalline roofline. But at street level, GBCA's restoration of the 13-storey facade, with its elegant stonework and the mosaic panels of its reconstructed archway entrance by Group of Seven member JEH MacDonald, is a reminder of the city's early skyscrapers. "We're all excited by the outcome," says KPF principal Josh Chaiken. Oxford, which purchased the Concourse Building in 1998, had always intended to preserve the facade and make it a part of a 40-storey tower; thanks to ERA Architects (who had secured the early planning permissions for the site), city council ultimately granted Oxford the right to demolish the structure and carefully dismantle the facade. PCL undertook the demolition in 2013. "Everything from the terra cotta elements on the top level of the facade to the roman stone base was removed, catalogued and sent to the Clifford Restoration facility in Scarborough," says construction risk manager Mike Jackson. Chris Borgal, principal at GBCA, notes, "Dismantling was necessary because the cast concrete facade had been heavily affected by street salts over the decades: it was imbedded LOCATION 100 Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Ontario OWNER/DEVELOPER Oxford Properties Group ARCHITECTS Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) / WZMH Architects HERITAGE ARCHITECTS GBCA Architects / ERA Architects GENERAL CONTRACTOR PCL Constructors Canada Inc. STRUCTURAL CONSULTANT Stephenson Engineering MECHANICAL CONSULTANT Smith + Andersen ELECTRICAL CONSULTANT WSP Canada LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Janet Rosenberg & Studio Inc. TOTAL SIZE 900,000 square feet TOTAL COST Undisclosed in the stone, causing water retention that had corroded galvanized reinforcement wire and the inability for mortar to stick to the surface." Borgal adds, "New terra cotta was formulated to match missing pieces, and this alone was a task because terra cotta shrinks when it's fired, so careful calculations had to be made in matching the original pieces." Jackson says Clifford also had to match new brick with old, "because the rebuilt facade would differ from the old in that it would be the same height but contain three fewer storeys, in order to match the new tower's increased floor heights – so more brick and less windows were required." Full bore shoring and excavation for the tower occurred between December 2013 and February of 2014, "and by the time we had reached the eighth floor of the tower, work crews began rebuilding the facade," says Jackson. Meanwhile, GBCA had hit upon a unique way to preserve the lobby's ceiling mosaics painted by JEH MacDonald. "We cut these 15-foot by eight-foot panels from their frames, carefully lowered them to the ground and removed them for restoration, then we reintroduced them as art exhibit elements throughout the new lobby space," says Borgal. KPF's design for the tower begins as a rectangular form that was transformed with sculptural facets at the southwest and northeast corners. At the base on the west side, a layer of glass extends from the tower above 9:03 AM 9:14 AM

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