Developers Recruit Pharrell Williams on Apartment Tower

Developers Reserve Properties and Westdale Properties have ramped up plans for a two-tower residential project in a collaboration, and inaugural move into high-density real estate, with Grammy award-winning artist, producer and designer Pharrell Williams.

The mid-town residential development in Toronto’s Yonge and Eglinton area, is the product of a “multi-faceted design process” which includes architects IBI Group and Interior Designers U31.

The project will deliver 750 units, split between two towers.

Williams, known for high-profile collaborations including Zaha Hadid Architects, recently finished a collaborative project on a Youth Centre in Virginia Beach.

“As developers with a long track record in this neighbourhood, collaborating with Pharrell is about pushing ourselves to do better,” Westdale Properties chief executive Mitchell Cohen said.

“But it's also an opportunity to give back to a community that has given us so much.”

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The collaboration with Toronto-based Reserve Properties and Westdale marks Pharrell's first foray into multi-residential development.

“Everyone at the table had a collective willingness to be open, to be pushed, to be prodded and poked, to get to that uncomfortable place,” Williams said.

Reserve Properties chief executive Sheldon Fenton described the partnership as “born out of a desire to do something unique for Toronto and architecture as a whole” on the project planned to launch next year.

The development marks the second joint venture project for Reserve and Westdale.

Earlier this year, musician Kanye West said he planned to “develop cities”, with construction now under way on West's prefabricated village of domed structures aimed as low-income housing.