With hybrid and remote work now a permanent fixture for a lot of professionals, a genuine home office has become a real consideration when choosing a floorplan — not an afterthought. Here's how to think through it at SkyTower specifically.

Start With the Den Question

A one-bedroom-plus-den layout is often the most efficient way to get a genuine, separated workspace without stepping up to a full two-bedroom. The key question is whether the den is actually enclosed (or enclosable) versus simply an open nook off the main living space — this distinction matters enormously for video calls, focus, and separating "home" from "work" mentally at the end of the day.

What to Actually Look For in a Workspace-Friendly Layout

A den with a door, or the ability to add one. An open den can work for some people, but a fully enclosed space makes a genuine difference for calls, concentration, and simply closing the door at the end of the workday.

Natural light in the workspace itself, not just the living area. Working in a windowless nook for eight hours a day is a meaningfully different experience than having even indirect natural light.

Enough electrical outlets and hardwired connectivity options near the intended workspace — retrofitting this after move-in is possible but more disruptive than confirming it during your unit selection.

Sound separation from the rest of the unit, particularly relevant if you share the space with a partner or roommate who's also home during the day.

What the Building's Amenities Add to the Equation

If your unit doesn't accommodate a fully separated home office, SkyTower's amenity package is worth factoring into your remote-work planning — many newer towers include co-working or business-centre-style spaces specifically designed as an alternative to working from your own unit every day. Confirm what's actually available and whether it suits your specific work needs (private calls, focused work, casual laptop time) before assuming your unit alone needs to handle 100% of your workday.

What to Consider Beyond Your Own Unit

The building's overall internet infrastructure. Ask directly what internet providers service the building and what speeds are realistically available — critical infrastructure for anyone working from home full-time.

Noise from shared walls and common areas, particularly if your workspace shares a wall with an elevator, hallway, or another unit's high-traffic area.

Proximity to the broader neighbourhood's own co-working and café options, as a backup for days you want a change of environment without leaving the immediate area.

What This Means for Your Floorplan Decision

If working from home is a significant, ongoing part of your life, weigh a den's genuine enclosability as heavily as square footage or view when comparing units — a slightly smaller unit with a properly separated workspace often serves a remote worker better than a larger open-concept layout with no real division between living and working.

The Bottom Line

A home office isn't just a nice-to-have anymore for a lot of buyers — it's a genuine functional requirement worth weighing seriously against layout, natural light, and connectivity when choosing your specific SkyTower unit.

Want to see which current floorplans best support a genuine home office setup? Register for pricing and floorplans and our team can walk you through the options.

Le Méridien's opening has understandably grabbed most of the attention around One Yonge Street's podium — but the hotel is only one piece of what's filling in at street level as the building approaches full occupancy.

Why Podium Retail Matters More Than It Sounds Like

A tower's ground-floor retail mix directly shapes daily life for residents — where you grab coffee before work, whether you need a car for basic errands, how the building feels to walk through versus just live above. It also tends to be a leading indicator of a building's broader trajectory: retailers don't commit to a location without confidence in the resident base and foot traffic supporting it.

Why Retail Leasing Has Been Picking Up Now Specifically

Retail tenants generally want visible proof of a building's resident base before committing — which is exactly why leasing activity accelerates as a tower approaches occupancy rather than during early construction. With Le Méridien's summer opening and fall move-ins arriving in close succession, SkyTower has hit exactly that inflection point.

What This Typically Looks Like for a Building This Scale

For a development of One Yonge Street's size, a mature retail podium generally includes some combination of:

• Food and beverage options residents can rely on daily — a café, a casual dining spot, options that don't require leaving the immediate block

• Everyday convenience retail — the kind of small-format shops that reduce how often residents need a car for basic errands

• Services tied to the hotel and residential base — the specific mix tends to reflect what a building's actual resident and hotel-guest demographic supports

As leasing continues through the fall, expect the specific tenant list to become clearer — this is exactly the kind of detail worth checking directly with the leasing office if a specific retail mix matters to your decision.

What This Means for Residents Moving In This Fall

Arriving after Le Méridien and much of the podium retail leasing has progressed means a meaningfully different move-in experience than earlier residents of towers where ground-floor retail took years to fill in after occupancy began. You're moving into a more complete neighbourhood context from day one.

What This Means for Investors

A well-leased, active retail podium supports rental demand in a way that an empty storefront doesn't — tenants searching for a unit increasingly factor in whether a building's ground floor feels alive or half-finished. If you're evaluating SkyTower as a rental property, the retail leasing pace is a genuine, if secondary, signal worth tracking alongside the core yield numbers.

The Bottom Line

Le Méridien's opening is the headline, but the broader retail podium filling in around it is what actually turns SkyTower from a residential tower into a functioning neighbourhood anchor. Worth watching closely over the next few months as more of the tenant mix becomes public.

Want the latest on SkyTower's amenities, retail progress, and remaining availability? Register for current pricing and floorplans and our team can walk you through what's confirmed so far.

Two milestones are landing back-to-back at One Yonge Street: Le Méridien Toronto Pinnacle is opening its doors this summer, and the first SkyTower residents move in this fall. That sequencing isn't a coincidence — and it's genuinely relevant if you're closing on a unit soon.

What's Actually Opening

Le Méridien Toronto Pinnacle occupies the lower floors of the tower complex — a boutique-format international hotel with 225 suites integrated into the base of the development. This isn't a hotel built somewhere near SkyTower; it's part of the same podium, which is exactly what makes it relevant to residents rather than just a neighbourhood amenity.

Why a Hotel in Your Building Actually Matters

Hosting guests without hosting them. A branded hotel in your own building's podium means out-of-town family and friends can book a room downstairs rather than staying with you — a genuinely practical perk that's easy to underrate until you actually need it.

Retail and dining momentum. Hotel openings tend to accelerate retail leasing in a building's podium, since brands want to be part of the traffic a hotel guest base brings. Reporting on the SkyTower community has already noted retail leasing "heating up" in the run-up to this opening — worth watching over the next few months as more of that retail mix gets announced.

A signal about the building's trajectory. International hotel brands don't attach their name to a building lightly — Le Méridien's presence is a vote of confidence in the address that tends to support the broader building's profile over time, including resale comparables down the road.

What This Means If You're Closing Soon

If your SkyTower occupancy is scheduled for this fall, you'll be moving in just after the hotel opens — meaning the podium-level amenities and retail will already be active rather than still under construction when you arrive. That's a meaningfully different move-in experience than arriving at a building where ground-floor retail is still empty storefronts.

If you're budgeting for interim occupancy fees in the meantime (see our companion post on what those fees actually cover), this is also a good moment to confirm your specific occupancy wave and timeline directly with the developer, since a fully operational podium is one of the last major milestones before the building is considered complete.

What This Means If You're Still Deciding on a Unit

For buyers or investors still weighing a purchase — whether directly or through an assignment, given how close the building now is to full occupancy — a completed, operating hotel and retail podium removes a layer of uncertainty that pre-construction buyers usually have to accept on faith. You're no longer betting on renderings; you're evaluating a building that's substantially delivering on what was promised.

The Bottom Line

The Le Méridien opening isn't just a nice-to-have amenity announcement — it's a concrete signal that One Yonge Street's most ambitious phase is genuinely arriving, on the timeline residents were promised. Combined with fall occupancy just around the corner, this summer is shaping up to be the moment SkyTower stops being a construction site and starts being a neighbourhood.

Want the latest on SkyTower's remaining availability before the building fully transitions to resale? Register for current pricing and floorplans and our team will walk you through what's left.