Moss Park / Queen & Sherbourne

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Agreed, but reducing the green space would be the challenge. One among many. You'd have to replace those tall slab towers (not sure there is an appetite for significantly more height), and also build new market housing on the site to pay for everything. You'd regain some space by moving a lot of the surface parking underground, but I am not sure it would be enough. They might get away with reducing the green space a bit. The optics of replacing publicly-owned green space with condos would be terrible. There is also a growing concern about the need to increase public amenities, parks in particular, hand-in-hand with intensification -- here the local community would undoubtedly accuse the City and TCHC of doing the opposite.

It would be interesting to know if TCHC has ever played with the numbers (I'm more interested in GFA, site area, etc. than the $ amounts) to see if it can be made to work.

It's also entirely possible that TCHC has no intention of initiating anything for Moss Park while there are still phases of Regent Park under development along Shuter.

Again just eyeballing the the site - you can put in a new E-W local roadway (plus extending one or two N-S roads - e.g. Ontario or Seaton & Berkeley to Queen Street E) and rebuild the 20s slab towers into shorter, 10s midrises filling the subblocks with interior courtyards. That would net you a major redevelopable lot off Shuter west of Seaton (if that's part of the TCHC property), plus maybe one smaller lot fronting Queen East (while keeping a chunk of the existing greenery as a park block. Some community use could be relegated to the podium of new private developments or even the public ones. The economics is probably less stellar than RP (and like you've said, they probably have their hands full at the moment), but it can be done.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

No question Moss Park is due for an overhaul. I also have the preference of seeing the streets re-integrated, one e-w. and 2 n-s.

On the density question, I had 2 ways of overcoming the problem.

One, was to have the city expropriate the remaining retail buildings fronting Queen and add them to the site.

By and large they are in poor condition and not worth saving/restoring.

***

In the alternative, I was thinking TCHC could pair the redevelopment of this site w/the lands it owns just east of Parliament, btw Queen and Shuter.

That block is very low density by comparison and simply scaling most of it up to mid-rise would allow for a much more mixed-use footprint along the lines
of what has been done w/Regent Park.

Parliament Street itself is very under-utilized w/mostly 1-21/2 storey buildings, so opportunities to seamlessly integrate the 2 sites across Parliament exist (again w/some
expropriation and/or willing owner/seller acquisition.

***

As to the armoury site, how about shifting it to the newly developing portlands?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

155 Sherbourne at the corner of Sherbourne and Shuter is also TCHC - so conceivably that can be added into the redevelopment mix.

AoD

 

[Skeezix]

Again just eyeballing the the site - you can put in a new E-W local roadway (plus extending one or two N-S roads - e.g. Ontario or Seaton & Berkeley to Queen Street E) and rebuild the 20s slab towers into shorter, 10s midrises filling the subblocks with interior courtyards. That would net you a major redevelopable lot off Shuter west of Seaton (if that's part of the TCHC property), plus maybe one smaller lot fronting Queen East (while keeping a chunk of the existing greenery as a park block. Some community use could be relegated to the podium of new private developments or even the public ones. The economics is probably less stellar than RP (and like you've said, they probably have their hands full at the moment), but it can be done.

AoD

You're optimistic (I don't mean that as a criticism). I'm a bit more negative about the prospects. I'm not entirely convinced that the 10-storey midrises would be able to replace the existing units (both in terms of overall numbers and GFA), while leaving sufficient room for market housing to finance this whole thing (I doubt one lot off Shuter, plus maybe a smaller one off Queen, would suffice). Keep in mind that in Regent Park there are roughly twice as many market units as RGI units being built. I don't think they're going to get away with losing much green space, unless they make up for it with community amenities in the building podiums (which simply reduces the residential GFA accordingly, making it harder to make the whole thing work). It would be great to see these blocks redeveloped, though, so I will keep my fingers crossed for your more hopeful take.

 

[Skeezix]

One, was to have the city expropriate the remaining retail buildings fronting Queen and add them to the site.

By and large they are in poor condition and not worth saving/restoring.

I disagree. The buildings on Queen closest to Sherbourne are a fantastic row of 19th-century brick commercial buildings, many of which are included in the City's inventory of heritage properties. Neglected, but worth restoring, and their loss would be a significant adverse impact to this community and to Queen Street. As for the other grouping, closer to Parliament, the cluster closest to Berkeley has been unsympathetically "improved" over the years (not sure if there is anything worth saving under the aluminum siding) although the variety store at the corner could be nicely restored. The other cluster, closer to Parliament, contains some nice buildings definitely worth saving, excluding the Subway at the corner.

Expropriating what amounts to two blocks worth of commercial properties along Queen Street would not be cheap, and the economics of the Moss Park redevelopment are already debatable without adding that bill to the tally. One should assume that most of the facades would be retained and restored (another expense), and that new development would be setback so that the old commercial buildings would still read as separate buildings. Not sure if it would be worth it (although the restoration would be nice).

 

[grey]

Developing the green space

Agreed, but reducing the green space would be the challenge. One among many. You'd have to replace those tall slab towers (not sure there is an appetite for significantly more height), and also build new market housing on the site to pay for everything. You'd regain some space by moving a lot of the surface parking underground, but I am not sure it would be enough. They might get away with reducing the green space a bit. The optics of replacing publicly-owned green space with condos would be terrible. There is also a growing concern about the need to increase public amenities, parks in particular, hand-in-hand with intensification -- here the local community would undoubtedly accuse the City and TCHC of doing the opposite.

It would be interesting to know if TCHC has ever played with the numbers (I'm more interested in GFA, site area, etc. than the $ amounts) to see if it can be made to work.

It's also entirely possible that TCHC has no intention of initiating anything for Moss Park while there are still phases of Regent Park under development along Shuter.

I see what you're saying, but is the assumption here that the city would need to include and redevelop Moss Park itself (the park with the sport facilities next to the armoury) in order for a Regent Park or Alexandria Park style refresh to work?

Strictly looking at the footprint of the existing towers east of Seaton and the amount of available green space immediately surrounding them, it looks like a smart architect could distribute roughly three times the present density without an increase in height. And we're talking about underutilized green space of the "towers in the park" variety (that is to say, it's completely unused), so I'm not really concerned about the optics here. They could build out to the sidewalks and maybe even have room for interior courtyard public spaces.

 

[rdaner]

Just a few quick pics of the streetscape surrounding Moss Park. Reconnecting the north-south streets seems like a relatively cheap first step.

 

[Skeezix]

Developing the green space

I see what you're saying, but is the assumption here that the city would need to include and redevelop Moss Park itself (the park with the sport facilities next to the armoury) in order for a Regent Park or Alexandria Park style refresh to work?

Strictly looking at the footprint of the existing towers east of Seaton and the amount of available green space immediately surrounding them, it looks like a smart architect could distribute roughly three times the present density without an increase in height. And we're talking about underutilized green space of the "towers in the park" variety (that is to say, it's completely unused), so I'm not really concerned about the optics here. They could build out to the sidewalks and maybe even have room for interior courtyard public spaces.

No - sorry for the confusion. I wasn't even thinking of the park itself, one block over, which I assume is sacrosanct (at least in terms of being sold off for redevelopment). As for the density, we're now just talking in circles, but I don't see how you get can get that much extra density on the site without eating up most of the green space on the site, and while you're not concerned with the optics, I think it would create a shitstorm if they tried and I don't think the current climate at City Hall would be receptive to any plan premised on it. While poorly designed, most of the existing green space on site is better configured than it was in Regent Park, and money was recently spent on to improve the playing field, add a community garden, etc. As they did with Regent Park, the City will be looking for well designed green space on site, likely in the same amount that exists today, given the redevelopment will likely be proposing 2-3 times the population on the site. How far they can get that down, in the context of all the other amenities and improvements being proposed, will be an interesting discussion to watch. Interior courtyards will be treated as outdoor residential amenity space -- unless it's part of the public realm, it won't count. It's all just speculative - it will be fascinating to see how they do it.

 

[Skeezix]

Today is an anniversary of sorts. I see on Twitter that the urban renewal plan for Moss Park was approved by Council on this day 57 years ago.

https://twitter.com/TodayTOHistory/status/623885893565288448

 

[slicecom]

Today is an anniversary of sorts. I see on Twitter that the urban renewal plan for Moss Park was approved by Council on this day 57 years ago.

https://twitter.com/TodayTOHistory/status/623885893565288448

Can't wait to see them redeveloped... it's been a (perhaps irrational) dream of mine to have Seaton, Ontario and Berkeley reconnected.

 

[Hamiltonian]

I'm moving into to this neighbourhood over the next month. I'm excited and scared at the same time.

 

[rdaner]

I think that reconnecting the above streets is probably the most important, short term measure that can be taken to improve this area.

 

[Edward Skira]

There's lots of room between Queen, Shuter, Sherbourne and Parliament for additional density. And rebuilding the street grids here would be a massive improvement. And I'd put retail back on Queen where a small park currently is.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

And add to that, the community centre at Moss Park will be redeveloped as part of the 519 project - and park can use some love along the lines of Grange Park revitalization.

AoD

 

[Skeezix]

There's lots of room between Queen, Shuter, Sherbourne and Parliament for additional density. And rebuilding the street grids here would be a massive improvement. And I'd put retail back on Queen where the park currently is.

I'd love to see how that would be possible with preserving the same number and GFA of RGI units, about double the amount of market units, reconnecting the old street grid, while maintaining largely the same amount of green space at grade (give or take). I'm not saying it's impossible, in fact I'd hope it is possible, I just think it's more challenging than "there's lots of room".