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Sal Parasuco, the Montreal jeans baron, has given up plans to put a hotel in the historic Canadian Bank of Commerce building, across from the Eaton Centre at 199 Yonge Street. On Monday Gary Switzer, chief executive of MOD Developments, announced his firm has bought the bank building, built in 1905, from Mr. Parasuco, along with the parkette to its north. He plans to retain the bank’s four-storey portion, and shoe-horn a 60-storey condo tower, with 650 units, on the parkette and behind the bank.

“Our tower is very tricky,” Mr. Switzer, a former planner at the City of Toronto and later employee of Great Gulf Homes, said Monday afternoon, sipping soy latte at Caffe Doria, across from his office in Rosedale. “It’s almost like it’s being surgically inserted into the block. It’s probably the most challenging project I’ve ever worked on.”

How this will work is anyone’s guess; Mr. Switzer does not yet have a rendering from his architect, Hariri Pontarini, nor does he have planning approval for the project. He said “yes” when asked if he would go to market before zoning is approved.