At ~6,000ft2 its not a potential tall building site.
That's before considering its adjacent to a par, and another existing hirise.
I find it difficult to believe that the current rental income supports that valuation.
The site is stranded.
Personally, if I were brokering the site, I'd be pitching Parks, Forestry and Recreation to see if they'd pick it up as an expansion of Olive Square Park. I frankly think this is a crappy spot for a Park, and Olive Square is one of the rare cases where I think the City should look at offloading the site.
That said, especially give its association as a memorial for the van incident, there's a case to be made for making the best of it, and having the park take the entire N-S block.
Err,... the City can't off-load a Olive Square,... official City parks are not sellable, especially for development.
Yes, this small site is stranded,... but it does have valuation beyond as retail rental - it has air-rights,... and potential!
Here, this southeast corner of Yonge & Finch - instead of the standard 4.5FSI density within North York Centre Secondary Plan, this prime corner site would get 6.0FSI with direct Subway Entrance (like Tridel HullmarkCentre, Menkes Gibson Square and Bazis Emerald Park),.... but now with OMB/OLT granting Double Density, this site could easily get 12.0FSI (as did Menkes 4800 Yonge),.... so 6,000sqft X 12FSI = 72,000sqft,... that's a lot of extra floor space to add onto a condo proposal! What's that worth to a Developer? And once the Developer transfer all the air-rights off the site, they convey the land to the City as Section 37 Community Benefit or Section 42 Parkland Dedication,... but,...
But what makes this site interesting is,... potential for TTC Entrance - a stand alone TTC entrance, not a hole in the wall nor hole in the ground but a proper TTC entrance building - with open space (Olive Square) next to it!,... currently, Yonge & Finch intersection is busiest pedestrian intersection in North York,... it even beats out higher-density area Yonge & Sheppard intersection. Why?
- At Yonge & Finch, all TTC Subway entrances are north of Finch,... forcing TTC users to cross Finch Ave.
- At Yonge & Sheppard, there's at least 1 TTC entrance at/near every corner - thus, reducing the need to cross Sheppard or Yonge!
And right now, as they're finishing up Finch West LRT from Finch West Station (Keele) to Humber College,... eventually, they'll extended Finch West LRT from Finch West Station (Keele) to Finch Station on Yonge Line 1. And when they do,.... this 2-storey retail space would be gone, and City won't need the City owned laneway that service it,... add in Olive Square and this could become something like Yonge-Dundas Square,...