By Iris Benaroia National Post
Smart technology and community-wide 5G service will be the standard for denizens of M City
For more than half a century, the late billionaire media mogul Ted Rogers retained a sizeable piece of land in Mississauga. Through the years, he sold various parcels to real estate developers, save for 15 acres at Burnhamthorpe Road and Confederation Parkway.
“He held on to this piece of property because he liked its location,” says John Anderton, vice-president, treasurer, of Rogers Communications. “It’s blank and beautiful and kitty corner to Square One and the Living Arts Centre,” he says of “the last greenfield site in Mississauga, a centre-ice property.”
Such amenities coupled by at-your-door transit — the Hurontario LRT is slated for the area — make it ripe for a master-planned community. And so, co-developers Urban Capital and Rogers Real Estate Development are transforming the site into M City.
It’s the first residential foray for Rogers, a name associated with magazines and mobile phones, not condo boards.
New York City-based architects Cooper Robertson are M City’s urban planners; Toronto’s CORE Architects and IBI Group are charged with adding a striking new shape to the skyline — in this case, a set of jagged, 60-plus-storey towers.
At full build-out, M City will have eight towers housing 15,000 people over 6,000 units. M1 and M2, at 61 and 62 storeys respectively, have already crested the 20th floor (residents move in next summer), while the 81-storey M3 by IBI Group is under construction.
“They’re spectacular. They’re taller than the Absolute Towers [an pair of curved condos three intersections away],” says Anderton. “We’re bringing to the table fantastic architecture that is going to change the Mississauga skyline forever.”
The next tower to zip up, the 67-storey M4, by CORE Architects will welcome residents in 2026.
Here, the 954 units will range from 420 square feet to 1,330 square feet. Suites—including one bedroom, one plus den, two bedroom, two plus den, three bedroom and three plus den—start in the low $400,000s.
The building’s exterior, which Babak Eslahjou, principal at CORE Architects described as a “deconstructed podium composed of stacked rectilinear building blocks” resembles an “S” from a bird’s-eye view.