Grade milestone shifts focus to vertical construction
Construction of the 348-bed Rekai Centre at Cherry Place in Toronto’s West Don Lands has reached grade, according to a report by Ontario Construction News. The 13-storey, 255,000-sq. ft. long-term care and healthcare project is being developed as a Campus of Care that will combine long-term care, healthcare services, education and community amenities in the growing waterfront neighbourhood, steps from Corktown Commons Park.
Reaching grade means the project has completed its below-grade structure and is moving into vertical construction. For the glazing trade, that shift is significant: curtain wall, window and storefront packages on institutional buildings are typically tendered and awarded as the structural frame begins to rise. The Rekai Centres has not released a building envelope procurement schedule, but the milestone clears the way for facade work to become the next major trade focus on the 13-storey structure. The shift from below-grade formwork to vertical structure also moves the project into a phase where building envelope design decisions start to affect procurement timelines. Glazing contractors monitor these milestones closely because curtain wall and window packages are often tendered before the structure tops out.
Project team and flagship healthcare scope
Multiplex is the general contractor and Montgomery Sisam is the design architect, with The Rekai Centres as owner, according to the same Ontario Construction News report. The project team also includes the Building Ontario Fund, Waterfront Toronto, George Brown Polytechnic and LifeLabs. A companion report by Ontario Construction Report confirmed the same details.
The facility is expected to open in 2028 and will include 348 long-term care beds. Of those, 96 beds are designated for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, and 22 beds form Rekai’s Rainbow Wing, which supports members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community and their allies. The project also includes designated dementia-care floors, an Infection Control Zone and a dialysis clinic.
These clinical spaces will shape the interior glazing package. Doors, sidelights, observation windows and borrowed lights in dementia-care and infection-control areas often require higher performance acoustic and impact ratings than standard commercial partitions. Specifiers for long-term care facilities also account for solar heat gain, daylighting and occupant comfort, which influence the selection of low-emissivity coatings and insulated glazing units. While the project’s technical specifications have not been made public, Canadian glazing contractors bidding on the work would generally need to demonstrate compliance with the Ontario Building Code and CSA A440/NAFS performance standards.
Envelope work ahead for a 13-storey facade
The sources did not name a glazing contractor or specify the curtain wall system. However, a healthcare building of this height and 255,000-sq. ft. footprint will require a large exterior envelope. Typically, a 13-storey institutional tower in Toronto would involve unitized or stick-built curtain wall, high-performance vision glass, spandrel panels and entrance storefront systems. The exact mix will depend on the final design documents, which have not been released.
For Ontario fabricators and installers, the Rekai Centre is a large healthcare and long-term care project moving through the Toronto market. The project’s location in the West Don Lands, a master-planned waterfront district, adds architectural expectations. Fenestration manufacturers serving the Ontario market work to CSA A440/NAFS test protocols, and many projects require third-party certification of air-water-structural performance. Buildings in master-planned waterfront districts often use contemporary curtain wall systems with strong thermal performance to meet energy-efficiency requirements under the Ontario Building Code. The owners have not published the project’s glazing specifications, so the performance targets for this building remain unconfirmed.
Education and community components add to the glazing scope
“George Brown Polytechnic is pleased to partner with The Rekai Centres on a new Education Centre,” said Dr. Gervan Fearon, President, George Brown Polytechnic. “By bringing education and practice together, we can provide our students with meaningful experiential learning while contributing to the development of a skilled healthcare workforce and strengthening care in our communities.”
The Education Centre, developed through a partnership between The Rekai Centres and George Brown Polytechnic, will provide healthcare students with hands-on training in an active long-term care environment. The program will support training for Personal Support Workers, registered nurses and other healthcare workers. These education spaces will likely include glazed partitions, observation windows and specialized doors to balance visibility with privacy in clinical training settings.
LifeLabs will operate a ground-floor Patient Service Centre at the facility, providing laboratory and diagnostic services to Rekai residents and the surrounding community. Ground-floor clinical space often calls for storefront glazing, insulated units and security glazing at entry points, although the project team has not released specific finish schedules for the LifeLabs fit-out.
West Don Lands continues to build out healthcare capacity
The project is supported by the Building Ontario Fund and is being delivered as part of the development of the West Don Lands and broader waterfront community. Peter Rekai, chair of the board of directors at The Rekai Centres, said the project is intended to create an integrated model of care that allows people to age in their communities.
George Brown Polytechnic president Gervan Fearon said the Education Centre will give students meaningful experiential learning while supporting development of the healthcare workforce. Waterfront Toronto chief development officer Meg Davis said the project will add healthcare and senior-care services to a growing community.
For glazing contractors and suppliers active in Toronto’s waterfront, the Rekai Centre at Cherry Place represents another large institutional project moving from excavation into vertical construction. The next milestone to watch is the release of the building envelope tender, which will clarify the curtain wall, window and storefront packages on the 13-storey structure. Once the tender is issued, fabricators will have a clearer picture of quantities, performance specifications and installation challenges on the congested waterfront site.