Toronto’s Entertainment District might be getting an ultrathin addition.

The city has received an application to build a narrow 10-storey residential rental building at 86 John St. on a property wedged between Festival Tower and the Pinnacle. The lot is roughly 6.5 metres wide and just under 43 metres long.

The new building would include a restaurant and 14 two-bedroom units — with most floors containing two units, one at each end, according to the application submitted at the end of May. The building would have no vehicle parking spaces, but would include two short-term and 13 long-term bicycle parking spaces.

It would also include a multi-level restaurant space, two rooftop terraces and a shared outdoor amenity space, said Holly Saplamaeff, an associate at Sweeny & Co Architects, which submitted the revised application on behalf of Tawse Realco Inc.

“(It’s) an exciting opportunity to activate a sliver of land that is sandwiched between two large residential towers on either side,” Saplamaeff said.

The company previously applied to build an eight-storey commercial building on the site in 2016, according to a heritage impact statement prepared for the city. Saplamaeff said the project was revised to be a residential rental building because of “market demand.”

Saplamaeff said the ultrathin building could serve as a precedent for other potential infill sites across Toronto.

However, Mitchell Kosny, interim director of the School of Urban and Regional Planning at Ryerson University, said the proposed building is not a “creative, progressive” solution to what he calls “unbuildable, oddball” sites, but rather yet another way for developers to make a profit.

“It’s just a hunk of concrete slab jammed into a laneway,” he said.

Kosny said demand will be high for the units given the prominent location directly behind the TIFF Bell Lightbox, but its status as a rental building means apartments could be used as short-term rentals.

“They’re not really designed to add families or add anything,” Kosny said. “I worry that it could turn into a rental run by absentee landlords and used for Airbnb.”

However, Kosny said there are some progressive aspects to the development. That includes its lack of parking, which he said would encourage residents to use alternative modes of transportation, such as biking or taking public transit.

Kosny added that despite its “awkward spot,” the building also has the potential to increase street life in the area and benefit surrounding local businesses.

He added he wished “we could apply the same principle (of creating ultrathin developments) to finding sites for social housing.”

The site is currently vacant, after a three-storey building was torn down in 2016.

Though the new building has more floors than the previous commercial proposal, Saplamaeff said they were able to maintain the same height restrictions.

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“Residential buildings typically have a lower floor-to-floor height than commercial buildings, two additional levels were added without increasing the overall height of the building,” Saplamaeff said.

She said while the construction schedule hasn’t been determined yet, the “tight site constraints” will pose a challenge, adding construction phases and methodology will need to be “carefully factored” in the design.

With files from Temur Durrani and Ilya Banares

Sherina Harris is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star’s radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @sherinaharris