Toronto 361 The West Mall | 60.35m | 19s | Turner Fleischer

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Etobicoke Infill Development: The West Mall and Eva Road

I came across this recent proposal for residential high density infill at the intersection of The West Mall and Eva Road. The site is adjacent to the Tridel West Village Site. Currently there are two existing apartment buildings..perhaps from the 70's. This proposal looks to add 3 more buildings ( two 23 storey high rises with a 3 storey podium and one 5 storey mid-rise). its great to see this type of infill development going in...The West Mall should get more interesting in the next few years.

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2010/ey/bgrd/backgroundfile-32262.pdf
 
It's about time they do something with that huge vacant park over there, I'm sure the property's worth millions. I work across the street at 405 The West Mall so this should be interesting!
 
It's about time they do something with that huge vacant park over there, I'm sure the property's worth millions. I work across the street at 405 The West Mall so this should be interesting!
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Yeah I agree. It really is a very bland and manicured site with nothing much to offer. I always thought the two existing buildings were such a waste of space, but I am glad they decided to keep them. One thing I hope they do differently is wrap the proposed podium around those existing buildings so they tie in well with the new towers.
 
The West Mall has potential to be a cool avenue if it gets densified with proper street fronting retail. The old 60's towers in parks along its length have a lot of annoying wasted space out front that could easily be filled in. I look forward to seeing another project being built in this increasingly hot area.
 
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Is there any plan from T.O. about future intensification along the West/East Mall strip? Or are the lands slowly being open to developers for more condos?
 
Towered said:
The West Mall has potential to be a cool avenue if it gets densified with proper street fronting retail. The old 60's towers in parks along its length have a lot of annoying wasted space out front that could easily be filled in. I look forward to seeing another project being built in this increasingly hot area.
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The West Mall is an interesting street to be sure with its combinations of housing styles, from ranch bungalows, to lowrise, midrise, and high-rise apartments. It also has modest office towers in places, and some retail, albeit in the form of stripmalls. I'd love to see it evolve to be more pedestrian-oriented. It's unfortunate, though, that the buildings with the empty green space were carefully positioned on the site with the ideal of not being too far from the street, while having plenty of visible green space. Putting up buildings in those green spaces can make the streetscape look cramped with the original tower rising strangely above some new building with little relation to the old.

The green spaces need to be redeveloped, but I'd argue in favour of a nuanced approach to keep some of the green space in some cases. A pavilion clad with glass with a coffee shop or some other business situated amidst the green space could be a way of preserving the distinctive and attractive features of Modern planning (the maturing trees and lawns today are quite nice, for instance), while bringing in a greater diversity of uses to stimulate pedestrian activity. Or, perhaps some greenspace could be enveloped to become a courtyard, which would make for a unique patio space. The green space can be an asset.

Also, those bungalows that tend to be on the west side of the street need to go. They're too suburban to support the kind of street I have in mind.
 
junctionist said:
Also, those bungalows that tend to be on the west side of the street need to go. They're too suburban to support the kind of street I have in mind.
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Actually, there don't tend to be bungalows on the immediate west side of the West Mall. If you notice on the map and in fact, it was laid out in the middle of a wide "buffer zone" between bungalow subdivisions and the 427--similarly with the East Mall, at least between Bloor and Rathburn...
 
adma said:
Actually, there don't tend to be bungalows on the immediate west side of the West Mall. If you notice on the map and in fact, it was laid out in the middle of a wide "buffer zone" between bungalow subdivisions and the 427--similarly with the East Mall, at least between Bloor and Rathburn...
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I must have been thinking of that stretch north of Dundas and south of Bloor where the west side is all bungalows, or north of Rathburn, where the West Mall becomes more of a local residential road but still has the towers in the park on the east side close to the highway (Street View link, note the massive private greenspaces on the right hand side). But the other stretches are characterized by a large difference between the built form of the west and east sides, with parks, a relatively sparse low-income townhouse communities and strip malls. I can see how the density was used as a buffer zone, another interesting bit of planning. It could be a vibrant street one day with new development and retail emphasizing pedestrian travel. At this point, the private green space is both an asset and hindrance.
 
Cannot find anything on this and not sure of the address at this time.

This is in front of West Village that doesn't looking to good for it at this time.
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Excellent, more tower-in-the-park infill a la Emerald City at Sheppard and Don Mills. This is definitely positive, as long as some greenspace is retained.
 
Approved by OMB as 2 23s Towers and a 5s with 776 units and 960 parking spots. Project is on hold by the developer.

Last heard, dealing with the city on the site plan
 
Some more upscale types of residential developments would be a big boon to nearby Sherway Gardens mall. For some reason or another, in the last couple of years Sherway has started to become more of a "plastic bag" shopping centre.
 
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