The City of Toronto has ordered the Shangri-La hotel and condo building to take immediate action to prevent injuries from falling glass.

The city issued the “order to remedy unsafe building” to the developer of the 65-floor Shangri-La tower on Aug. 5, demanding they install overhead falling-glass protection on the sidewalks around the downtown property.

The city also ordered the developer, Westbank Corp., to prevent the building’s condo owners and hotel guests from using their tempered-glass balconies until they can be wrapped in a protective netting to prevent them from falling.

The order comes after a pane of patio glass shattered and fell from the 51st floor of the luxury hotel and condo tower on July 17.

No one was injured when the glass fell onto University Ave. at the height of the busy morning commute, but that hasn’t always been the case.

Last September, a 53-year-old man suffered minor injuries when he was struck by falling shards, one of five such incidents at the building since it opened two years ago.

Since the “unsafe building” order was issued for the 180 University Ave. property last week, construction scaffolding has gone up on the sidewalks around the building as a temporary overhead barrier while the balconies are wrapped with webbing.

How long the scaffolding stays up will depend on how quickly the wrapping is completed, said Westbank spokeswoman Jill Killeen in Vancouver.

“Once that is in place, then the street-level scaffolding can come down,” Killeen said.

That wrapping has already begun, according to the city.

The city’s building department and the developer have already removed more than 300 pieces of balcony glass from the Shangri-La to test for nickel sulfide inclusions, or microscopic imperfections in the glass that can cause spontaneous breakage.

Inclusions have been blamed for balcony failures at three other new downtown highrise buildings in recent years: Festival Tower, One Bedford and the Murano Towers.

Of the 325 tempered glass panes removed from the Shangri-La, only 44 have been tested so far.

“You have to physically take the actual piece of glass, reheat it in an oven and if it breaks, you can determine if the cause of the break was nickel sulphide,” said Mario Angelucci, Toronto’s deputy chief building official. “Likely if it breaks, it’s nickel sulphide.”

Of the five Shangri-La balconies that have failed since 2012, one was likely caused by an impact, one was caused by nickel sulphide and the causes of the other three are unknown but may have been sulphide inclusion, according to Angelucci.

All of the Shangri-La pieces taken for testing so far have been replaced with laminated glass, which is sealed and holds its shape when shattered, unlike tempered glass.

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Before the city issued its order last week, Westbank had applied for a permit to replace the balcony glass with laminated glass on the two sides of the building overlooking University Ave. and Adelaide St., according to the city and the developer.

Once testing is complete, further measures may be taken by the city, Angelucci said.