Thornhill - Yonge to become people place

[adma]

I guess -- but I can't imagine anyone seriously arguing that Yonge is Thornhill's retail core.

Well, for lack of anything else, i.e. you might as well be questioning whether Thornhill has a retail core *at all*...

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

IOn the other hand, there are definitely a bunch of restaurants on that stretch of Yonge that are popular with the locals. Ginza is always packed, and Indian Kitchen does okay right next to it (as does the bubble tea place on the other side of Ginza, come to think of it) on the southwest corner of Yonge and Clark. The huge Korean restaurant on the northwest corner, at the top of what is, in fairness, a much nicer version of the usual strip mall. The Persian pomegranate juice store in the same mall. The Persian nut store across the street. Heck, I guess it'll be torn down eventually to make way for the megadevelopment, but lots of people eat at Galleria (the enormous Korean grocery store/mall). And at Nino d'Aversa right by it.

Mmmm, Ginza.
True enough but I don't know how much of that will survive the development coming with the subway. The Galleria plaza will be gone in a couple of years (though I have to think that store will live on there or elsewhere). Nino D'Aversa is doing great but the strip mall behind it is precisely the sort of thing which won't last when the subway comes. Ditto for the plaza with the nut store and the Britannia pub (though, again, they may pop up in new locations).

You're right, overall, that there are some "hot spots" between Clark and Yonge but clearly they are car-driven, rather than pedestrian-driven spots.

I'm just saying the strip closer to Centre Street has some nice buildings but they're scattered and a lot have non-retail uses. The Korean resto you mention is a good example of what does work and I think if they can do that with some condos on top just north of there you can see maybe not a LIVELY strip, but certainly something that takes advantage of what is, after all, a great, underused location on Yonge Street. You have some nice, succesful stores around Centre - the Starbucks, the costume shop, the chocolate shop - but there's no cohesion. The post office will be condos soon enough and if they can do the same with the ghastly Tim Horton's plaza (which I can't imagine even the heritage people want there), and put some nice retail at grade, you could have something.

 

[Disparishun]

Well, for lack of anything else, i.e. you might as well be questioning whether Thornhill has a retail core *at all*...

Right. Most retail in Thornhill is relatively car-oriented, and happens at strip malls and at the Promenade. Walking-oriented retail happens mostly within strip malls, not so much between them.

(1) The Springfarm Marketplace (aka the Sobeys Plaza) at Clark and Hilda, or (2) the long string of large and very lively strip malls on the north side of Steeles between Hilda and Dufferin or so, anchored by Bathurst, or (3) the strip malls going up Bathurst (anchored by the Starbucks one and the Chabad one, on the way to the Promenade) are good examples.

The point is that for these strip malls and strings of strip malls, which are really how retail happens in Thornhill (and many other parts of the 416 and 905), Yonge isn't really much of a core axis.

You're right, overall, that there are some "hot spots" between Clark and Yonge but clearly they are car-driven, rather than pedestrian-driven spots. I'm just saying the strip closer to Centre Street has some nice buildings but they're scattered and a lot have non-retail uses.

Yeah, I think you're right -- once you get much north of Clark, and especially past Arnold/Elgin, it gets very sporadic. This pretty much tracks the higher-density development (condos and apartment buildings on Yonge, less-sprawly townhouses and singles to the west of it), which is much more present between the CN tracks and Arnold-ish. Starting with Arnold and moving north towards Centre, you're right into megahomes followed by historic district, with almost no density at all. The Yonge Street retail pretty much tracks this movement.

 

[jaycola]

I just drove up Yonge from Steeles to Hwy 7. It is hard to imagine creating anything more than a few isolated streetscape blocks of retail. The area north of Clark is such a mixed bag of multi-residential, office, commercial, automotive with a few heritage buildings thrown in.

Here is a link to the 2006 study that might give some insight to what is envisioned. If they could accomplish something like this, it would be a great improvment over the desolate state it is in now. http://www.markham.ca/NR/rdonlyres/3918CBE6-FB53-4459-B5C3-96B9A9A04EA9/0/the_master_plan.pdf I think the plan here is for less than 500 meters of Yonge to be recreated.

I doubt I saw a dozen people actually walking anywhere along the strip now.

 

[Transportfan]

Well, for lack of anything else, i.e. you might as well be questioning whether Thornhill has a retail core *at all*...

It doesn't really. There isn't much more to it than Thistletown or a myriad of half-forgotten former villages in suburban Toronto. It's only because it's in the 905 that it's as well recognized as it is.

 

[Disparishun]

It doesn't really. There isn't much more to it than Thistletown or a myriad of half-forgotten former villages in suburban Toronto. It's only because it's in the 905 that it's as well recognized as it is.

That sounds wrong.

I think where you're getting hung up is on the idea that where there is a retail core, there is a local identity, and where there is not there isn't.

Like many areas of the 416 and 905, retail in Thornhill is car-oriented: strip malls and malls. That doesn't make it placeless, though. Certainly there is a stronger affiliation among many or most of those who live there to Thornhill than to Vaughan, Markham, or York Region.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

There's other stuff on Yonge in Thornhill to look at:
http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?t=604
http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?t=667
http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?t=7883
http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?t=5538
http://www.markham.ca/NR/rdonlyres/3918CBE6-FB53-4459-B5C3-96B9A9A04EA9/0/the_master_plan.pdf

Olde Thornhill isn't much of a retail hotspot because Promenade and a few other plazas stole its thunder. Yonge isn't much of a main street through here, but that could change, given all the development proposed for it, but who knows what the retailscape will actually end up looking like. If Thornhill was to throw off its Markham and Vaughan masters, the only sensible option would be to become its own municipality, not to join Richmond Hill. Thornhill wouldn't be small - it'd have like 115,000 people, and that's before all these developments (like the Langstaff lands), which could easily bump Thornhill over 150,000. Thornhill does have a fairly distinct local identity.

 

[oreoshack]

retail on yonge in historic thornhill is ruined because of the valley between centre/thornhill heights and royal orchard. i think they should just leave it the way it is, its still nicer than a whole lot of places in the city.

 

[adma]

It doesn't really. There isn't much more to it than Thistletown or a myriad of half-forgotten former villages in suburban Toronto. It's only because it's in the 905 that it's as well recognized as it is.

Thistletown's a bad choice, because it has a very defined and active retail core at Albion + Islington--all the more so now that's been Little India-ized...

 

[Towered]

Thistletown's a bad choice, because it has a very defined and active retail core at Albion + Islington--all the more so now that's been Little India-ized...

It's just too bad that the buildings are so ugly. Raze them!

 

[adma]

They're strip malls. They're benign more than they're "ugly"--more like all those hives for Iranian retail on Yonge south of Steeles...

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Olde Thornhill isn't much of a retail hotspot because Promenade and a few other plazas stole its thunder. Yonge isn't much of a main street through here, but that could change, given all the development proposed for it, but who knows what the retailscape will actually end up looking like. If Thornhill was to throw off its Markham and Vaughan masters, the only sensible option would be to become its own municipality, not to join Richmond Hill. Thornhill wouldn't be small - it'd have like 115,000 people, and that's before all these developments (like the Langstaff lands), which could easily bump Thornhill over 150,000. Thornhill does have a fairly distinct local identity.

As mentioned at the star of this thread, the Markham-Vaughan study is basically out the window but they're using it as a starting point for what they want to do for the whole Steeles-7 length.

Markham and Vaughan both treat TH like the ass-end of their municipalities and it's really ironic if you look at map that the greatest density etc is in this far corner of each. The idea of secession is appealing and logically, SOMETHING should be done to give Thornhill some legal unity but, practically, speaking, as much as they often ignore the area, neither Markham nor Vaughan would let that tax base get away.

I think you're right about how hard it is to anticipate what development will mean because development is inevitable.

You're never going to change the geography - the malls, the valley, the CN tracks - but there IS redevelopment coming. It will be mixed-use with lots of mid-rise condos and retail-at-grade between Clark and Steeles. That can create a pedestrian culture of some kind.

Similarly, the heritage district now has zoning permitting mixed-use developments of up to 4 stories and one (the post office) is approved, I believe.

There is no critical mass and the heritage district will never be Unionville. But it can be used as a "theme" to which any development must aspire (like the Starbucks plaza, or the heritage building housing Macs) and something better can be there.

 

[Disparishun]

Markham and Vaughan both treat TH like the ass-end of their municipalities and it's really ironic if you look at map that the greatest density etc is in this far corner of each. The idea of secession is appealing and logically, SOMETHING should be done to give Thornhill some legal unity but, practically, speaking, as much as they often ignore the area, neither Markham nor Vaughan would let that tax base get away.

I have to say, I pretty much agree with you. There is certainly a sense of place in Thornhill, and it would probably be better for everyone -- those in Thornhill, and the GTA as a whole -- if Thornhill were locally controlled, and in a unified manner.

However, someone should probably sooner or later, on the Vaughan side, mention the Thornhill Town Centre/Thornhill City Centre projects at Bathurst/Centre. Most of the residential development around there has been quite dense -- condo towers and packed townhouses, which is not necessary unusual for Thornhill-Vaughan but is more present here than elsewhere. They are not great, but they are something.

Strip malls continue, though, to be just about the only outlet for entrepreneurial, single-location retail. Ultimately that is Thornhill's biggest retail issue.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Good point on the City Centre area. The retail strip on Disera opened late in the season and is still filling in. By this summer we should have some sense of if it is working at all as the pedestrian-friendly strip they envision.

The Wal-Mart is a knock against it but they did what they could to force Smart Centres to do something a bit different.

There is something of a main strip feel and a nice collection of largely upscale shops (Starbucks, sushi, Marble Slab, Bagel World, a fashion place etc) along Disera, north of the Promnade and it's definitely better than the scrub that was there before or a strip mall, or a big box mall.

If it works - and it is an if - it has the potential to shift the traditional shopping model a bit. I'm hoping, anyway.

 

[ShonTron]

The split of the Village of Thornhill down the middle was really unfortunate, while each other Yonge Street town remained intact all the way up to Lake Simcoe.

I wonder what the boundaries of the re-formed town would be. On the west side, it's quite easy - the CN/GO Newmarket Sub, on the east side, a bit more up-in-the air, but 404 would be perfect, CN Bala Sub I guess reasonable. The 407 would obviously be the northern border.

Without Thornhill, Vaughan and Markham would still have all sorts of developable land.

I also find Peel to be particuarly unwieldy. Peel should have been five municipalities rather than three. Malton, I feel, has lost the most in that arrangement. Brampton as well does not serve the new Ebenezer (7 and Gore Road) area well thanks to the gulf created by Claireville.