Best of 2024: Winners of UrbanToronto’s 11th Annual Year-End Poll, presented by Sapphire Balconies

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The results are in for UrbanToronto's 11th annual year-end reader survey of the most popular new buildings completed in 2024. Hundreds of our readers voted for buildings in 8 categories, with each category representing buildings in a similar height range. With 91 buildings in the survey competing, the majority were residential, including 86, with only a few non-residential buildings completed this year. For this reason, buildings are grouped by number of stories (an approximation of height) rather than by type; There simply aren't enough non-residential buildings of similar size being completed to compare with others. The survey also starts at 6 floors, as buildings below that floor number typically don't attract much attention in UrbanToronto threads, with some exceptions. But here's how voters responded to what was on the agenda this year.

Category winner:

6-7 floors

There were 19 entries in this section – our largest category, which could potentially have spread the majority of votes across many entries – but instead we had a clear winner here: 2 Queen West, who received 51.97% of the vote the majority secured for themselves. However, that's no surprise when you look at what it has and what it has had to contend with: 2 Queen West by Cadillac Fairview is an exquisite heritage restoration (supervised by ERA Architects) with some new square footage in a modern addition in the Upper floor (with Zeidler Architecture overseeing the design of the entire project), and people care deeply about our heritage.

2 Queen West, image by UrbanToronto Forum contributor Paclo

2 Queen West's competition, however, was a fairly standard mix of low-end and mid-rise buildings, mostly residential, most of which were almost indistinguishable from one another, plus a few outliers. In fact, it was the other outliers that took second and third place in the category: QRC West Phase 2, a 7-story expansion of a 17-story office building of the same name completed just south of it in 2015, received 8.97% of votes and LiUNA Local 183 Headquarters, which received 5.16% of the votes. The remaining 33.9% of votes were pretty much split between the remaining 16 entries, although there was one that received no votes at all, Park Tower at Meadows of Aurora.

8-9 floors

There were 10 entries in this section, and it is notable that a heritage-inspired, predominantly residential building in Hamilton received the most votes here, with the Augusta Block receiving 39.46% of the vote. The developer is Core Urban Inc. and Lintack Architects Incorporated is responsible for the design.

August Block Buildings 2 and 3, image by Reifenwick, UrbanToronto Forum contributor

In second place, The Davies on Avenue Road received 20.4% of the vote. There was little between third and ninth place, but another Hamilton building, Westgate on Main, came in last with 2.24% of the vote.

10-13 floors

There were 13 entries in this section, and again the winners were outliers in terms of usage: the clear winner was T3 Bayside, a wood-frame office building near Toronto Harbor with 41.03% of the vote, while the first York University's Markham Campus building came in a distant second with 12.78% of the vote. T3 Bayside was developed by Hines and designed by 3XN and WZMH Architects.

T3 Bayside, image by Edwarander, UrbanToronto Forum contributor

The remaining entries were mostly residential buildings, with little difference in terms of votes. Three of them took last place with 2.02% of the votes each and three others took second to last place with 2.47% of the votes each. Since there is so little between so many of them, the margin of error in the survey could reasonably be attributed to the quality of the photography, so there's no point in picking out the least favorite images here.

14-19 floors

There were 12 entries in this category, most of which were residential buildings. Two stood out: WestLine Condos received 25.34% of the vote and 123 Portland received 22.65% of the vote. WestLine was developed by CentreCourt and designed by Arcadis.

WestLine Condos, image by UrbanToronto Forum contributor Justelena

Carrying Place Vista, a rental building in Weston, received little attention and came in a lonely last place with 1.35% of the vote.

20-29 floors

Of the 10 entries in this category, which are also primarily residential, Galleria 01 and 02 in Almadev's Galleria on the Park project in Dufferin and Dupont won with 26.91% of the vote. This phase was designed by Core Architects.

Galleria 01 & 02, image by AlbertC, UrbanToronto Forum contributor

Second, third and fourth places were all close together, with Westport Condos, Blue Diamond Condos and Time and Space Condos scoring 14.8%, 13.68% and 13.23% respectively. There was no standout loser among the followers here, so we don't want to embarrass the followers here.

30-39 floors

There were 16 completions in this section, all residential, but some of them were residential*, with the asterisk in one case representing a university dorm and one about half a hotel… and these two slight outliers took the first and second place . Hamilton's McMaster Graduate Student Residence, designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects for Knightstone Capital Management and Leggat Investments, won the category with exactly 25% of the vote, while Toronto's TOOR Hotel and 203 Residences on Jarvis came in second with 21.62%.

McMaster Graduate Student Residence, image by HousingNowTO, UrbanToronto Forum contributor

Garden District Condos, just a few blocks from TOOR, came in third with 12.61%, with the final 13 listings dropping from 8.1% to 0.68% of the vote.

40-49 floors

Only 7 buildings in the series were completed this year, with the outlier, the only office building in the group, easily taking the trophy here: 160 Front West, known as TD Terrace to those in the large section leased to TD Bank, cost 47, 39% of the votes. It was designed by AS + GG Architecture and B+H Architects for Cadillac Fairview

160 Front West (center), image by UrbanToronto Forum contributor jackattack

Of the six buildings, which are primarily residential, five were hard to separate from each other, with two sharing second place; Nobu Residences and Hotel (with a historical component) and Peter and Adelaide each have 12.2% of the vote. While three other buildings received a relatively even 26.76% of the vote, there was one clear loser: Central Condos only received 1.81% of the vote.

Over 50 floors

Only 4 buildings were in our highest category, with the standout building, the only one with a large commercial component, Toronto House, with both an office space podium and a hotel, taking up a small percentage of the residential tower above and receiving 61.85% of the vote. the clearest choice in the survey. The building was designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects, with ERA Architects overseeing the restoration of the historic building for Westbank Corp and Allied Properties REIT.

Toronto House (center left), image by UrbanToronto Forum contributor kotsy

The remaining 38.15% is spread fairly evenly between the remaining three, all mostly residential, with no obvious loser.

That's it for this year's winners, but if you visit this link you can see all the buildings that entered the competition.

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UrbanToronto has a research service, UTPro, that provides comprehensive data on development projects in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, from proposal to completion. We also offer instant reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from the first application.​​​