I live in this area (in the triangle) and I think it's a long time to gentrification. The apartments on Cosburn are actually fairly rundown and need to be renovated or rebuilt. If the TTC improves service through the area, the potential will really pick up but as with all things TTC, that's at least 30 years down the road.
The restaurant selection is dismal, our coffee choices top out at 7-11 or McDonalds and it's too far to walk to a nice shopping district. The Food Basics is one of the worst grocery stores that I have ever been in and I will only buy packaged items there such a diary. The area is exactly halfway between the Danforth and Leaside (Bayview) business areas so I do walk on occasion to both but you need to have the time. One of my neighbours calls the area "the 905", haha, because it is so suburban that you need to drive everywhere. There are a few nicer stores at Donlands & O'Connor but the businesses along Pape are not in this category.
Don't be so discouraged. It's moving forward faster than you may realize. There's a nice little produce place a few doors away from Shopper's (which could be modernized, I admit.) Sobey's is not that far. Serrano Bakery is a treasure. Folia Grill is great but small. Just up at O'Connor is O'Connor Station which, despite its old-fashioned appearance, has great food.
As more of those bungalows get sold by the people who have occupied them for decades, they will be snapped up by the kids who can't afford Leslieville and Riverdale. Then the additions and new second floors will happen, just like the reno boom happened in Riverdale in the 80s and Leslieville in the 90s. Retail and restaurants will follow.
I think the area is very well served by transit BTW, despite the fact that when it was all built up, it was a sort of postwar little boxes on the hillside subdivision. The original 905, I guess you could say. I think the Dairy Queen at Pottery Road was the first in Toronto. I count four buses running up Broadview and across Mortimer, Cosburn, O'Connor and to Don Mills and a couple more from Pape Station.
I think the Donlands area works because, if you look at it carefully, you can see it was built as a planned shopping district, probably postwar. So there's a high concentration of retail -- but nothing between that and Danforth.
I think Broadview North is a bit of a retail dead zone too, much worse than Pape.
As for Pape, I suspect that many of the retail establishments are owned by people who may still live upstairs. I have noticed an entire corner somewhere along Pape, can't remember the intersection, which consist of three or four empty storefronts. I bet there's an estate in dispute there and, pretty soon, a proposal for development sign will go up.
Don't forget, Keesmaat has designated it an "avenue."
