Vaughan Promenade Mall Revitalization | ?m | 35s | Liberty Development | WZMH

jaycola

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Following on recent reports of the sale of Promenade Mall to the Serryua Brothers from Cadillac Fairview,
today I received a copy of a "Conceptual site plan" for the north east corner of the property that could see the development of seven towers each 27 stories along with new retail and a 3 story parking structure.

While this site is not currently dealt with within the still in progress secondary plan for this section of Centre Street, this project if approved would add a lot of density to what is already the densest residential neighbourhood in all of York Region.
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Seven towers, all at the same height? Sounds dreadful. What about a little variation in the way of height, shape, materials, etc? Hope something juicier emerges...
 
This is likely just a basic proposal to get official plan permissions. Though the way Vaughan likes to encode heights into their official plan, it may very well end up like that. Expo City will be 5 towers, 2 of them 39 floors and 3 of them 37.. (only two of the 37 story ones have been built so far)
 
The numbered company appears to be the Torgan Group, owners of the Pacific Mall, Village on the Grange, and others. Largely appear to be commercial retail developers, so I bet they are upzoning this to sell it off.
 
This was posted on BuzzBuzzHome back in May

"Toronto’s northern neighbour the City of Vaughan has received an official plan application that proposes several high-rise structures at 7700 Bathurst Street, which backs on to Promenade Circle, BuzzBuzzHome has learned."http://news.buzzbuzzhome.com/2016/05/7-towers-vaughan-promenade-mall.html

Most recently there was a very well attended and contentious public meeting regarding the development proposal, the overwhelming community opinion opposed to the project.

A little more info from the local papers recently.
http://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/6998322-new-vision-proposed-for-thornhill-s-promenade-area/

"Picture a block surrounding Thornhill’s Promenade Mall with a public square at the corner of Centre and Bathurst streets ringed by restaurants.

Imagine shops, seven 27-storey condo towers and an internal roadway system. Then, picture a sidewalk edged with stores on the north side of Promenade Circle.

This is the vision for the area presented to the public by land use planner Weston Consulting and architect Les Klein of Quadrangle Architects, both hired by the Torgan Group."
 
The developer is typically a commercial retail plaza operator, not sure how capable they would be of actually pulling this off. Mind you, Rio Can has gotten into the development game, who isn't to say Torgan can't join..
 
I think Torgan is just going through the rezoning process and will ultimately sell or partner with a residential builder in the future with whatever approvals they receive in hand.
 
New entry in PlanIt for 1 & 180 Promenade Circle:
Phase 1 of Promenade revitalization. New retail space, 3 residential towers and a combined office/hotel tower. New 'high street' and urban square

No documents uploaded yet, however this are the development's boundaries (in yellow):
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Yup! Only issue I think they may run into in the future is that they built an entire development around the mall but the mall is still dead, which will leave this weird open space in the middle... The Promenade is dying at a crazy fast rate. Stores are leaving left, right, and center. It is very sad, rumors of swirled that the mall is closing, which seems to have sent customers away. Promenade is a stunning structure, so bright and airy, much nicer than Bayview Village, just has no stores left. Looking forward to the mall's renovation. According to the article they are going to do an Erin Mills type of renovation with new skylights and a new center court. Attached are some images of the Promenade during peak shopping hours. Looks like Sears will go as part of the redevelopment.

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Planning docs are up on Planit. Lots of info for those interested.
Phase 1 will include 4 residential towers (2 x 28s, 30s, 35s)

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I don't like that none of the buildings in phase 1 will face public roads. It won't make the area feel more walkable from Bathurst St. or Centre St.
 
Very bold vision. Hope to see more failing regional shopping malls developing their vast parking lots into denser, multi use mini downtowns that utilize the revenue generating potential of all that surrounding, wasted land. Yorkdale and MSCC need to follow their lead and do something very bold with their what's left of their surface parking. The developers need to visit (if they haven't already) the mega, vertical malls of Bangkok, Seoul and Shanghai for inspiration.
 
Very bold vision. Hope to see more failing regional shopping malls developing their vast parking lots into denser, multi use mini downtowns that utilize the revenue generating potential of all that surrounding, wasted land. Yorkdale and MSCC need to follow their lead and do something very bold with their what's left of their surface parking. The developers need to visit (if they haven't already) the mega, vertical malls of Bangkok, Seoul and Shanghai for inspiration.

Yorkdale has the dream plan with tons of office buildings and condos in the works. It should be on the forum
 
I can confidently say that a lot of malls around the GTA are in the process of formulating redevelopment plans of various scales. This isn't the first mall to get mixed use development and won't be the last.
 
As someone who lives near the mall i am very concerned about traffic. the traffic situation is already out of control and adding all these units will just add more cars to an already congested area. I know they are building transit in the area, but the reality no one takes transit in Thornhill. The buses are empty and run so infrequently.
 

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