Toronto’s concrete slab apartments to get green retrofit

Two sites in the Downtown core have already been selected to participate in the pilot project

By Bulletin Staff –

Towers like the delapidated 15 Dundonald are in dire need of renewal

Towers like the delapidated 15 Dundonald are in dire need of renewal

The environment and residents in Toronto’s thousand, decades-old concrete slab apartment towers will be the beneficiaries of Mayor’s Tower Renewal, an ambitious new project unveiled by Mayor David Miller.

Selected for the pilot project are 200 Wellesley St. E. and 275 Bleecker St., with 711 units, 30 floors and 322 units, 22 floors, respectively.

“Mayor’s Tower Renewal will bring building upgrades, community reinvestment and greening initiatives, which will foster vibrant communities, and significantly reduce greenhouse gases throughout any city,” said Mayor Miller. “It will also place new expectations of complete and sustainable communities upon our neighbourhoods, and will provide a variety of tools to create positive change.

Mayor’s Tower Renewal focuses on delivering social, economic, cultural and environmental benefits by renewing concrete high-rise residential towers. Built in the 1960s and 1970s, concrete slab construction towers are found in cities around the world – from Chongqing to Chicago – with about 1,000 located in Toronto.”

At its core, the project relies on cladding the high-rise buildings in a way that reduces energy use by 50 per cent or greater while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by three to five per cent for the entire urban area. But Mayor’s Tower Renewal will do much more, says city sources, including the creation of local green jobs, the increase of on-site small-scale retail and markets, upgrading of green space around the buildings as well as providing improved space for neighbourhood interactions.
Plans call for the installation of solar, wind and geothermal energy and green roofs and increased water conservation and on-site management of waste.

In addition to the Toronto initiative, Mayor Miller, as chair of the C40 Group of large cities fighting climate change, is asking member mayors to adopt and adapt the principles and objectives of the program in and for their cities.

“We know that 80 per cent of the world’s population lives in cities,” said Mayor Miller. “Working together cities can bring about real, tangible reductions in greenhouse gases that benefit all.”