Yonge and Steeles, Gateway to Toronto?

I have lived up at Yonge and Steeles for the last 10 years.

As you enter Toronto from the North along Yonge Street, the most striking thing you'll see is the lack of pedestrians and the amount of traffic.
The area is dominated by Centrepoint Mall, a smaller regional mall and lots of smaller strip plazas.

Can this area be saved?
Can you convert a suburban wasteland into something Urban and desirable?

new development is moving from the south.

it will take some time, but there will be redevelopment along yonge, mostly because of the subway extension. i think there are already plans to redevelop the hy&zels plaza which is just a bit north of yonge/steeles.

Centrepoint

I don't remember the fate of it....

But there was a huge redevelopment proposal for Centrepoint about 10 years ago???

It involved several new office towers, condos, and mall expansion/reorientation.

It didn't move forward at the time, I can't remember the specifics.

But you can be sure the mall owners still have redevelopment on the brain.

Don't forget one of the two sites for the new Steeles Station on the Yonge line is on current Centrepoint parking lot.

Place your bets that that will not happen w/o a tower over the top.

The proposal for Centrepoint was from the late 80's and indeed did include a bunch of towers. I was a postie for a while and delivered mail to the mall. In my rounds I delivered to the mall office. The office had a large model of the proposal. IIRC correctly the mall was willing to pay for some of the cost of extending the subway to Steeles in return for being allowed to build this project. The proposal bit the dust when the recession hit in the early 90's.

Centerpoint (yes, that's the correct spelling) and the strip malls are easily redeveloped, but the post-war residential blocks off Yonge will need some kind of secondary plan like North York Centre to the south, with plans for extending Doris & Beecroft, to meld seamlessly with North York Centre and with whatever Markham/Vaughan do with their sides of Yonge (they've begun planning), to improve upon North York Centre, to lure offices and institutions and other varied space uses. Whatever they do, it's Yonge, it'd be hard to go wrong...but it'll take 15-20+ years.

It does look like the condo boom stopped at Finch, which makes sense because of the subway. If they extend the subway north, Yonge/Steeles will be the site of the next big condo-craze.

The condo boom stopped at Drewry/Cummer because that's where the North York Centre rezoning stopped.

I found this old thread I started 5 1/2 years ago. So what has changed at the intersection in that time?

Yes the Hy and Zel's Plaza became World on Yonge as predicted.
Certainly a lot more pedestrians in the area than when I wrote that.
Toronto completed a study on their part of the intersection.

There are no development proposals I know of but there were a few applications for increased density.
Traffic is worse in the area. Public transportation is no better. I can't think of anything new built in the area. Lots of good restaurants within a walk. Loads of potential. It's like they pushed the pause button here.
Everyone is waiting for the subway to redevelop.

*I mispoke. There is the building to the south of Golden Star. 21 Stories resdential over retail in Markham.

jaycola said:

I found this old thread I started 5 1/2 years ago. So what has changed at the intersection in that time?

Yes the Hy and Zel's Plaza became World on Yonge as predicted.
Certainly a lot more pedestrians in the area than when I wrote that.
Toronto completed a study on their part of the intersection.

There are no development proposals I know of but there were a few applications for increased density.
Traffic is worse in the area. Public transportation is no better. I can't think of anything new built in the area. Lots of good restaurants within a walk. Loads of potential. It's like they pushed the pause button here.
Everyone is waiting for the subway to redevelop.

*I mispoke. There is the building to the south of Golden Star. 21 Stories resdential over retail in Markham.

Click to expand...

I was just about to correct your mis-speaking when you caught it

It is a bit interesting that the thread talks about development moving north when now I think it's also coming FROM the north. There's definitely some sense of a "pause" while waiting for the subway but I think World on Yonge showed that not everyone is willing to wait. (OTOH, it's also frustrating they were set to do the BRT and put it on hold for the subway and now nothing is happening as a result. Doing the BRT as a stop-gap would have been pointless but this corridor is very ripe for transit improvement.)

I think there's some frustration that World on Yonge is getting commercial rather than retail at grade. (I haven't seen the shops inside yet.) With the car dealerships on the other side for the time being, I don't know how much of a pedestrian street-wall you were going to get anyway but it seems like an opportunity is sailing by (but, it's early days).

It's also worth referring back to this thread for the Vaughan Yonge-Steeles corridor study, where you posted some very relevant images. The new zoning is in place on the York Region side of the border and I'm not sure what the deal is in Toronto now. It will take some time but I expect the "gateway" will take shape sooner rather than later, relatively speaking.
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/showthread.php/604-Yonge-Steeles-corridor-study/page2

Back in the 80's there was a plan to redevelop Centrepoint (then called Town and Country Mall). Fell due to the recession of the late 80's.

See 2013NY27.28 "Yonge Street North Planning Study Final Consultant's Report and Next Steps on Implementing Offical Plan Amendments" and attachments. You'll get a pretty good idea of how the City is going to proceed Finch to Steeles....

Do you have a link to a website?

Link: Draft Yonge and Steeles Area Regional Transportation Study Sept 2015

Markham has published the linked document which briefly outlines the development potential for this area (approx 40,000 new residents and 7000 jobs) and the necessity for transportation upgrades prior to further development. At present they claim just 230 units remain for development without transit improvements.

Link: Yonge Streetscape Draft Plan

As well from York Region is the Streetscape for the Yonge corridor showing what it could look like in the coming years.