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Leslieville / Studio District

Let's go to the other end of town, won't we? A generation ago, when the industrial facilities of Massey-Ferguson, Inglis, et al were still intact, the whole King/Shaw/Strachan zone was bleak, barren and lifeless. (NB: on behalf of industrial archaeologists who regret the loss of said industrial ensembles, I'm playing devil's advocate) Now, it's well-condoed and well-inhabited by the kinds of executive classes who commute downtown via the King streetcar. The proverbial "thriving, bustling community with choices for everyone". And, y'know what? It didn't need a Smart!Centre to get that way (unless the Dominion-store zone counts).

==================

And furthermore...

Back to PeterC's response to my
You might as well say that an extraordinarily cheesy retro-condo won't kill the community, either--yet that doesn't make it any less unacceptable, or worth fighting...
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with
I don't see a condo development, that brings more consumers into the community.... as a " kill " effect. Nor do I see Smart!Centres on Eastern Avebue as a ' kill " effect.
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I think he missed my point--which is a point that's pertinent within a forum as sensitive to matters of architecture and planning and urban form as UT.

If I read that right, I guess as far as PeterC is concerned, a vile piece of suburban schlock that's an insult to the neighbourhood is fine and dandy, because it "brings more consumers into the community".

With that kind of bush-league urban sensibility, why on earth should his praise of a Smart!Centre be trusted? Get this straight: Leslieville ain't Orangeville...
 
The East Toronto Community Coalition is sending the following petition to Jim Watson (the Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing) regarding the future of the Toronto Film Studio lands. Please sign if you agree!

http://www.easttorontocommunity.org/petition/create/

Note: the SmartCentres discussion has been moved here to create a one-stop discussion thread on this very important subject.
 
Leslieville mall not 'big-box' project, developers say

JAMES RUSK

March 29, 2008

The bloodiest development battle being waged in Toronto involves a proposal to build a $220-million shopping mall on the south edge of Leslieville, an older east-end neighbourhood.

But amid the noise and dust of the battle over the 7.5-hectare site, now used by a film studio, both the nature of the proposed project and the legal gauntlet it has been forced to run at City Hall have been obscured, the backers believe.

This week at a press conference at City Hall, Kelly Carmichael of the East Toronto Community Coalition used the phrase "big-box" to describe the project, evoking a picture of large, free-standing stores surrounded by acres of parking.

But the 700,000-square-foot Shops of Leslieville is not a big-box development, Tom Smith, vice-president of development at SmartCentres, said in an interview. SmartCentres is the project's developer.

Plans the company has submitted to the Ontario Municipal Board, where the fight has ended up, show a red-brick, two- or three-storey, mixed-use development on the east side of Pape Avenue between Eastern Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard, with two sets of buildings divided by a pedestrian mall.

The parking for 1,900 cars - half what's normally required by the city for a project its size - would not be visible from either Eastern or Lakeshore.

Store sizes would range from 2,000 to about 130,000 square feet, the largest being half the size of a standard Wal-Mart store in Ontario.

Wal-Mart is rumoured to be the major tenant, but Mr. Smith said no lease has been signed with any anchor store.

The image of the project as a classic big-box site remained throughout this week's news conference, at which letters of opposition by architects Daniel Liebeskind, Jack Diamond and Ken Greenberg were unveiled and at which former mayor David Crombie spoke out.

Likening the dispute to the fight over the Spadina Expressway, which was stopped by the provincial government, Mr. Crombie said he supported a council request that Queen's Park express a provincial interest in the project before the May 20 OMB hearing.

One of the legal ironies noted by the developer is that the use of the site for large-scale retail development was approved by city council in 2002, when it voted on the city's postamalgamation official plan.
 
Leslieville mall not 'big-box' project, developers say

JAMES RUSK (Globe and Mail, 29/03/2008)
[...]

But the 700,000-square-foot Shops of Leslieville is not a big-box development, Tom Smith, vice-president of development at SmartCentres, said in an interview. SmartCentres is the project's developer.

Plans the company has submitted to the Ontario Municipal Board, where the fight has ended up, show a red-brick, two- or three-storey, mixed-use development on the east side of Pape Avenue between Eastern Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard, with two sets of buildings divided by a pedestrian mall.

The parking for 1,900 cars - half what's normally required by the city for a project its size - would not be visible from either Eastern or Lakeshore.

Store sizes would range from 2,000 to about 130,000 square feet, the largest being half the size of a standard Wal-Mart store in Ontario.
Click to expand...

The current matter before the OMB does not deal with those site-specific plans (they can be viewed at http://thefoundrydistrict.ca/) but with zoning and official plan amendments; there is no obligation for SmartCentres to build according to those plans once it wins at the OMB.

I don't know where to begin with the idiocy of this SmartCentres development: in an era where most intelligent people want a less energy-intensive city whose life is less dependent on individual car use to go about their daily business, and who want more transit-friendly development; who want to have less massive single-use districts dependent on large continual fluxes of traffic; who want to encourage an inclusive, local urban economy less dominated by regional/national chains and more hospitable to medium and small business; who want livable, suitably dense urban neighborhoods with amenities and a healthy environment--we in Toronto manage to do precisely the opposite. And then we blather on about "sustainable" cities as if our good intentions can substitute for the real thing!

And I don't believe this shopping area would be limited to the SmartCentres property (18+ acres): the owners of adjacent properties have argued motions in the OMB appeal asking that any changes in zoning/official plan be applied to their interests as well, possibly at least double the area now under review, which will become a kind of mega "life-style center" of apparent small-scale urbanity, as the kind of "small scale" non-big-box developments like the proposed SmartCentres Foundry District are referred to in the USA--that is, if the city can keep a lid on 150K+ sq.ft. businesses throughout the district.


One of the legal ironies noted by the developer is that the use of the site for large-scale retail development was approved by city council in 2002, when it voted on the city's postamalgamation official plan.
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I think that vote simply was the product of inadequate consideration, treating the area as though it was a typical peripheral brownfields situation.

The original Toronto Film Studios proposal in 2004 (pre SmartCentres, when TFS were acting as developer) was for a mixed condo/townhouse development with some retail, but the city rejected the required plan and zoning amendments on a variety of grounds: conversion of "employment" lands into residential uses, environmental remediation concerns, and several others. In hindsight, that project would have been far better than what SmartCentres is now proposing.

Remember, "official plans" under the OMB appeals process have the consistency of fond hopes, as the city's detailed secondary planning efforts always *follow* as a reaction to development pressure in a neighborhood, the secondary planning never seems to precede those pressures, and often there never seems any resemblance between the planning principles embodied in the official plan and the actual *existing* zoning in a given area. So once developers ask for changes to existing zoning to accommodate their projects, and everything moves on to the OMB appeal process after the city refuses the changes per the official plan, then those contradictions between the principles of the official plan and the precedents of actual existing regulations become real food for the developers' lawyers at the OMB.

The whole dispute is a morass emblematic of the planning process in Toronto, and really difficult for any non-specialist member of the public (such as myself) to understand.
 
insertrealname said:
The whole dispute is a morass emblematic of the planning process in Toronto, and really difficult for any non-specialist member of the public (such as myself) to understand.
Click to expand...

It's actually very simple. This land and it's buildings are the motherland of the Toronto film industry, and for twenty years, 25,000+/- skilled jobs have depended on it. Filmport's more expensive studios provide additional studio space, but are not a replacement for TFS / Eastern Ave.'s low to medium rent studios. The Toronto film industry, a manufacturer of very small to very large budget films, needs every legitimate studio in order to retain its infrastructure and remain globally competitive. TFS / Eastern represents 20-25% of the genuine studio space available. In the current marketplace, the loss of the TFS studios would be a setback from which the industry would never recover, and the resultant skilled jobs loss, too heartbreaking to contemplate.

If the OMB does the right thing, or failing that, if the province declares an interest, and it does the right thing, and rezoning from employment to retail is rejected, Leslieville and the film industry will be spared. It's that simple.
 
Leslieville Big Box (Toronto Film Studios Site)

From the Globe:

LESLIEVILLE DEVELOPMENT

Architect gives retail project thumbs up after seeing for himself
Says Layton gave him wrong impression
JAMES RUSK

April 7, 2008

A prominent Canadian architect has decided to back a controversial development in the old east-end neighbourhood of Leslieville, saying that federal NDP Leader Jack Layton misled him into opposing it.

In a letter to Mr. Layton, who was once the councillor for the city ward in which the project is located, Jack Diamond said that the impression he got about the development from a telephone conversation with Mr. Layton "was of a large box surrounded by surface parking."

Mr. Diamond wrote that now that he has seen the project's plans, "they differ in several important respects" from what Mr. Layton described to him, including a failure by the NDP Leader to mention that, along its two main sides, the project is a continuous front of shop windows, store entrances and pedestrian colonnades.

Mr. Layton said in an interview from Calgary that Mr. Diamond did not use the word "misled" in the letter and that was the word used by a reporter to describe the tone of the letter.

"I'll watch for the conclusions you draw, and I'll watch them very carefully, if you don't mind my saying so," Mr. Layton said.

Mr. Layton added that he had called Mr. Diamond, two other noted architects - Ken Greenberg and David Libeskind - and former Toronto mayor David Crombie.

"All I did was raise the matter in the most general sense and to take a look at it and if they had an opinion to express it," Mr. Layton said.

While the political opposition to the project at city hall has been spearheaded by Paula Fletcher, Mr. Layton's successor on council, that Mr. Layton had taken time from federal politics to play an active role in opposing the project was not known until The Globe and Mail obtained Mr. Diamond's letter.

After the conversation with Mr. Layton, all three architects wrote letters criticizing the project, which were unveiled at a recent city hall press conference, also attended by Mr. Crombie who threw his support to the project's opponents.

The opponents are trying to get the Ontario government to intervene in an Ontario Municipal Board hearing on the project, set to begin May 20, when the developer, SmartCentres, will try to get the 7.5-hectare site rezoned for retail use.

While the opponents of the project have labelled it a "big-box" development, SmartCentres has said that this is not an accurate depiction of the two-to-three storey red-brick, mixed-use development on a site east of Pape Avenue between Eastern Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard.

In the letter, Mr. Diamond said that after reviewing the plans of the 700,000-square-foot Shops of Leslieville, he discovered they follow a model that has proved successful in other neighbourhoods in North America and will also be successful in Toronto.

"This development will be a healthy, positive extension of urban fabric and good city planning principles in this community. It represents a significant step forward in building healthy, street-related retail, healthy neighbourhoods and supports the community," the letter said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080407.BIGBOX07/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/

AoD
 
I was just about to post that article.

Jack Diamond's obviously out-to-lunch, but at least he's consistent. He's designing a suburban office box on our waterfront. Why wouldn't he support a big-box complex with token faux-urban touches?
 
SeanTrans said:
He's designing a suburban office box on our waterfront.
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...and coincidently, another project which required the demolition of a vital Toronto film studio just last year, and another reason why maintaining 629 Eastern as studios is so critical to the film industry.
 
caveatemptor said:
It's difficult to believe that the giant FILMPORT site won't make up for all the lost studio space at the TFS once it's completed.
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When completed in several years, Filmport will be a large complex, and will be in demand by large Hollywood feature films. Meantime, Phase 1, which will soon be operational, will be about 130,000 sq ft of studios, roughly the same as TFS / Eastern. One of its studio will be the huge Mega-Stage, and this alone is unique and different in the Toronto studio mix. It will attract very large productions, one at a time. However, the film industry does not survive on one large project at a time. It also requires a full range of smaller and medium productions to be healthy.

Look at Filmport as a large new vehicle. Now look at TFS / Eastern as a small used vehicle. Both vehicles do the same thing. The large new one does it at an additional expense, which not everyone can afford. The smaller used one is more affordable, and hence has wider appeal. The film industry needs both to remain competitive. Filmport is value added to the film business. It is not a replacement for any of the current Toronto studios.
 
caveatemptor said:
If that's the case then it should be easy for the OMB to reject Goldhar's proposal on the grounds that the area will really be losing unique and valuable higher-paying employment in favor of $10/hour Walmart jobs.
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Nicely said. You are 100% correct.
 
SeanTrans said:
I was just about to post that article.

Jack Diamond's obviously out-to-lunch, but at least he's consistent. He's designing a suburban office box on our waterfront. Why wouldn't he support a big-box complex with token faux-urban touches?
Click to expand...

Well, I do see his point. From illustrations, it does appear that the Goldhar Gang seems to be using something like Port Credit's recent developments as a design cue.

Sure, it's a wolf in sheep's clothing; but, hey...
 
Role of TEDCO in all this?

The FilmPort/TFS marriage was the result of a TEDCO bidding process, with the management exclusivity granted to the winner apparently as compensation for financial risk. TFS (well, the owner of TFS) wanted to cover that risk with the proceeds of redevelopment of its existing land, first on its own with a potentially lucrative mixed-use project, then when that idea was shot down, with a financially stronger partner really capable of taking on the authorities.

The potential of economic loss/destruction in the Toronto film industry "ecosystem" (in the case of Cinespace, it's already happened) must have been foreseen by TEDCO and TFS--surely they are well-informed about the Toronto film-making economy?!? I mean, TEDCO at least is supposed to be an "economic development" agency...

What's really behind this mess? Just an excess of stupid closed door deal-making, or are there issues of corruption and influence-peddling here?
 
Sounds like its time for some to bash TEDCO again. There was a peice on filmport on the CBC last night. Seems TEDCO has caused Toronto to have Canada's largest and newest film studio, which will open in May, and has reserved 40 acres of land for the film industry on the waterfront instead of just condos. I suspect that is what "economic development" agencies do.
 
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