Mike in TO
Senior Member
Phase 2 of the redevelopment has started OMB pre-hearings. The proposal includes several residential towers, seniors’ housing, a community centre and a public park.
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Shops at Don Mills (redevelopment, Giannone Petricone/Pellow + Associates )
TheProfessor
Active Member
My wife and I had lunch at Jack Astors new location here (Don Mills Centre) and I can't believe how much the area has changed, and how quickly. I think in the warmer months it will be a very nice place.
Can't wait to see this project in a few months.
Can't wait to see this project in a few months.
gregv
Active Member
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090221.MCEWAN21/TPStory/?pageRequested=all
MAGNIFICENT GAMBLE: WHEN IS A GROCERY STORE NOT A GROCERY STORE?
Mark McEwan's really, really big idea
The star chef wants to revolutionize the supermarket, and he's chosen the controversial Shops at Don Mills as the place to realize his dream. The decision isn't to some locals' taste, reports Jessica Leeder.
JESSICA LEEDER
February 21, 2009
Picture this: You're midway through the daily race home from work, sapped of energy and feeling about as culinarily inspired as Chef Boyardee.
In the old days, you would have outsourced dinner duty to experts in pizza delivery. Instead, you detour out of highway gridlock and nip over to mcewan, a little spot in the heart of Don Mills where the twinned scents of espresso and fresh baked bread rush your nostrils.
The savoury smell of roasts at the hot bar pull you past a sushi counter where the chefs are crafting fresh rolls. You face a quandary: Do you delve into the 50-foot sprawl of prepared offerings, scallion spun potatoes and curry braised short ribs? Or do you move on to the fish and meat counters, weave through the charcuterie and North American cheese, assembling raw ingredients for your dinner, plus a few indulgences - house-jarred foie gras, or luxury Galler chocolates?
You settle on a mélange and move to the checkout, where clean-cut young men pack your things into fully biodegradable paper bags, which do not cost extra. While the bag boys carry the load to your trunk, you whisk back into the store to order a latte from a relaxed barista. You revel in the New York-inspired romance of the place, with its fresh flowers and thoughtful displays, then set off for a bistro-quality meal - at home.
Sound like a dream?
It is, and it belongs to Toronto uber-chef Mark McEwan, the architect of some of this city's finest cuisine. The dream is scheduled to come true later this year, around the time spring blooms into summer.
When the chef-turned-businessman cuts the ribbon on his 22,000-square-foot space, it will mark the realization of a vision half-a-dozen years in the making. But for one cadre of community members, the opening of the up-market grocery and its neighbouring niche vendors represents the coming of a nightmare, one in which they've been priced out of a place to shop.
DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Mr. McEwan, 51, has been hiking his way to the pinnacle of chef-dom in Toronto since the late 1970s. After a stint in the early eighties as executive chef at the Sutton Place Hotel, where he cooked for Pope John Paul II, among others, he began assembling the building blocks for a restaurant and catering empire. Anchored by uptown hot spot North 44, it now includes Yorkville restaurant One, the financial district's Bymark and a Food Network series, The Heat.
As the chef's star has risen in this city, so has his grocery-related malaise.
"When you walk in a store today, it's just aisle upon aisle of convenience food. When you go to the fresh section, the tomatoes are lousy and the herbs are lousy and the meat is substandard, and the fish, I can't bring myself to buy. The bread is ... just the same bread everybody else has," he said.
"I don't like to be disparaging about what other people are doing. But I can't find anything that gets me excited."
This is something that does get Mr. McEwan, who says he is never without "a project," excited. "I have been thinking about this forever."
Don Mills 4
Cadillac Fairview's redevelopment of the historic Don Mills Centre presented a unique venue: An open-air hybrid that is part mall, part Main Street, the concept will present elite vendors with enough pull to draw shoppers from all over the city.
After studying the location ("I have many, many maps with circles on them"), Mr. McEwan decided the Shops at Don Mills was perfect for the launch of his $6-million Europe-meets-North America food-retail experiment.
He hired Peter Turcot, a former Loblaw vice-president whom he has dubbed the "grocery guru" of the operation. Together, the pair have developed a strategy that features edible offerings, which will be produced in the second-floor restaurant-style kitchen. They believe this nerve centre will set mcewan far ahead of its competitors in the cut-throat specialty grocery sector.
"There's no expertise in prepared foods at all. That's where everybody really falls down, in having a chef put a pot on the stove and making something worth eating," Mr. McEwan said. He believes that the fresh product, plus his commitment to old-style service and healthy food, will keep clients coming back.
"The basic quality that people eat, from bread to cheese to fish to meat, should be at a higher standard. I'm not saying that you try to go for cult products like Kobe beef or Wagyu beef or things that are ultra-expensive. That's not the concept at all," he said. "You can buy real food. You'll be able to shop here every day."
By his measure, Mr. McEwan will attract neighbourhood residents who will splurge on specialty items, shoppers who live in nearby residential pockets such as the Bridle Path and Rosedale, plus commuters traversing nearby arteries such as Bayview Avenue, Leslie Street, York and Don Mills roads and Highway 401.
"This demographic is massive," he said. "People don't understand how big it is. If you imagine people hopping in their car, which you have to do in Toronto ... it's very convenient for people."
Precisely what Don Mills old-timers are afraid of.
FIGHT FOR THE TOWN SQUARE
The fifties- and sixties-style ranch houses and back splits that ring the winding streets of Don Mills are still filled with many of the original residents, who moved to Canada's first planned community after its construction in 1953, attracted by the contained, small-town feel it offered.
Divided into four quadrants, the 835-hectare neighbourhood was designed to minimize through traffic. Rimmed by industrial zoning on the periphery, the inner residential loops are linked by pedestrian pathways and green space. At the heart of it all, the forefathers of the neighbourhood planned an open-air commercial hub, inspired by the marketplaces of ancient Greece.
"Many people moved here because of this convenience. The mall was the centre of the community," said Simone Gabbay, founder of Don Mills Friends, a community advocacy group that formed in 2006 to lobby against the reformation of the old shopping plaza. "In the summer it was cooling, in the winter it was warming. It served the people who lived here ... it had grown out of the needs for services they had."
By 2001, though, it was becoming evident to plaza owner Cadillac Fairview that the community was poised to outgrow the aging marketplace, which had lost its old department-store anchors and become laden with discount shops.
"The average age of the [mall] consumer was 55, yet the average age of a person in the community was 45," said Anne Morash, vice-president of development for the company. "Basically what we weren't doing was servicing those in the community."
Five years later, the company settled on a plan to restore the shopping plaza to a version of its former self - in its original incarnation, the mall was not fully enclosed - by knocking down the weathered building and replacing it with a new streetscape concept pioneered in middle America.
"It's really meant to be like Bloor West Village, or Bayview and Eglinton ... the only difference being that all the stores are owned by the same landlord," Ms. Morash explained.
In keeping with the community's treatment of the mall as a meeting place, a 60,000-square-foot town square will centre the shops, a mix of service-based businesses and "better-quality retailers, but not necessarily high-end," Ms. Morash said.
The decision to raze the old mall tipped off an uproar in some parts of the community. Ms. Gabbay's group circulated a petition that gained signatures of 5,000 detractors. Their efforts, though, were not enough to save the old mall.
The community's more established residents group, Don Mills Residents Inc., took a different tack. "We basically started working with them to try to improve the plan they put on the table," said Terry West, a 25-year resident and president of the group, which is one of the largest associations of its kind in the city. "They're in the business to make money. You have to acknowledge that."
Mr. West's association was also ready to acknowledge a wave of demographic changes that was beginning to erode Don Mills' aged base. "It's a renaissance taking place, there's no question about it," he said. "Life is changing. We're not living in the fifties and sixties any more."
MAGNIFICENT GAMBLE: WHEN IS A GROCERY STORE NOT A GROCERY STORE?
Mark McEwan's really, really big idea
The star chef wants to revolutionize the supermarket, and he's chosen the controversial Shops at Don Mills as the place to realize his dream. The decision isn't to some locals' taste, reports Jessica Leeder.
JESSICA LEEDER
February 21, 2009
Picture this: You're midway through the daily race home from work, sapped of energy and feeling about as culinarily inspired as Chef Boyardee.
In the old days, you would have outsourced dinner duty to experts in pizza delivery. Instead, you detour out of highway gridlock and nip over to mcewan, a little spot in the heart of Don Mills where the twinned scents of espresso and fresh baked bread rush your nostrils.
The savoury smell of roasts at the hot bar pull you past a sushi counter where the chefs are crafting fresh rolls. You face a quandary: Do you delve into the 50-foot sprawl of prepared offerings, scallion spun potatoes and curry braised short ribs? Or do you move on to the fish and meat counters, weave through the charcuterie and North American cheese, assembling raw ingredients for your dinner, plus a few indulgences - house-jarred foie gras, or luxury Galler chocolates?
You settle on a mélange and move to the checkout, where clean-cut young men pack your things into fully biodegradable paper bags, which do not cost extra. While the bag boys carry the load to your trunk, you whisk back into the store to order a latte from a relaxed barista. You revel in the New York-inspired romance of the place, with its fresh flowers and thoughtful displays, then set off for a bistro-quality meal - at home.
Sound like a dream?
It is, and it belongs to Toronto uber-chef Mark McEwan, the architect of some of this city's finest cuisine. The dream is scheduled to come true later this year, around the time spring blooms into summer.
When the chef-turned-businessman cuts the ribbon on his 22,000-square-foot space, it will mark the realization of a vision half-a-dozen years in the making. But for one cadre of community members, the opening of the up-market grocery and its neighbouring niche vendors represents the coming of a nightmare, one in which they've been priced out of a place to shop.
DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Mr. McEwan, 51, has been hiking his way to the pinnacle of chef-dom in Toronto since the late 1970s. After a stint in the early eighties as executive chef at the Sutton Place Hotel, where he cooked for Pope John Paul II, among others, he began assembling the building blocks for a restaurant and catering empire. Anchored by uptown hot spot North 44, it now includes Yorkville restaurant One, the financial district's Bymark and a Food Network series, The Heat.
As the chef's star has risen in this city, so has his grocery-related malaise.
"When you walk in a store today, it's just aisle upon aisle of convenience food. When you go to the fresh section, the tomatoes are lousy and the herbs are lousy and the meat is substandard, and the fish, I can't bring myself to buy. The bread is ... just the same bread everybody else has," he said.
"I don't like to be disparaging about what other people are doing. But I can't find anything that gets me excited."
This is something that does get Mr. McEwan, who says he is never without "a project," excited. "I have been thinking about this forever."
Don Mills 4
Cadillac Fairview's redevelopment of the historic Don Mills Centre presented a unique venue: An open-air hybrid that is part mall, part Main Street, the concept will present elite vendors with enough pull to draw shoppers from all over the city.
After studying the location ("I have many, many maps with circles on them"), Mr. McEwan decided the Shops at Don Mills was perfect for the launch of his $6-million Europe-meets-North America food-retail experiment.
He hired Peter Turcot, a former Loblaw vice-president whom he has dubbed the "grocery guru" of the operation. Together, the pair have developed a strategy that features edible offerings, which will be produced in the second-floor restaurant-style kitchen. They believe this nerve centre will set mcewan far ahead of its competitors in the cut-throat specialty grocery sector.
"There's no expertise in prepared foods at all. That's where everybody really falls down, in having a chef put a pot on the stove and making something worth eating," Mr. McEwan said. He believes that the fresh product, plus his commitment to old-style service and healthy food, will keep clients coming back.
"The basic quality that people eat, from bread to cheese to fish to meat, should be at a higher standard. I'm not saying that you try to go for cult products like Kobe beef or Wagyu beef or things that are ultra-expensive. That's not the concept at all," he said. "You can buy real food. You'll be able to shop here every day."
By his measure, Mr. McEwan will attract neighbourhood residents who will splurge on specialty items, shoppers who live in nearby residential pockets such as the Bridle Path and Rosedale, plus commuters traversing nearby arteries such as Bayview Avenue, Leslie Street, York and Don Mills roads and Highway 401.
"This demographic is massive," he said. "People don't understand how big it is. If you imagine people hopping in their car, which you have to do in Toronto ... it's very convenient for people."
Precisely what Don Mills old-timers are afraid of.
FIGHT FOR THE TOWN SQUARE
The fifties- and sixties-style ranch houses and back splits that ring the winding streets of Don Mills are still filled with many of the original residents, who moved to Canada's first planned community after its construction in 1953, attracted by the contained, small-town feel it offered.
Divided into four quadrants, the 835-hectare neighbourhood was designed to minimize through traffic. Rimmed by industrial zoning on the periphery, the inner residential loops are linked by pedestrian pathways and green space. At the heart of it all, the forefathers of the neighbourhood planned an open-air commercial hub, inspired by the marketplaces of ancient Greece.
"Many people moved here because of this convenience. The mall was the centre of the community," said Simone Gabbay, founder of Don Mills Friends, a community advocacy group that formed in 2006 to lobby against the reformation of the old shopping plaza. "In the summer it was cooling, in the winter it was warming. It served the people who lived here ... it had grown out of the needs for services they had."
By 2001, though, it was becoming evident to plaza owner Cadillac Fairview that the community was poised to outgrow the aging marketplace, which had lost its old department-store anchors and become laden with discount shops.
"The average age of the [mall] consumer was 55, yet the average age of a person in the community was 45," said Anne Morash, vice-president of development for the company. "Basically what we weren't doing was servicing those in the community."
Five years later, the company settled on a plan to restore the shopping plaza to a version of its former self - in its original incarnation, the mall was not fully enclosed - by knocking down the weathered building and replacing it with a new streetscape concept pioneered in middle America.
"It's really meant to be like Bloor West Village, or Bayview and Eglinton ... the only difference being that all the stores are owned by the same landlord," Ms. Morash explained.
In keeping with the community's treatment of the mall as a meeting place, a 60,000-square-foot town square will centre the shops, a mix of service-based businesses and "better-quality retailers, but not necessarily high-end," Ms. Morash said.
The decision to raze the old mall tipped off an uproar in some parts of the community. Ms. Gabbay's group circulated a petition that gained signatures of 5,000 detractors. Their efforts, though, were not enough to save the old mall.
The community's more established residents group, Don Mills Residents Inc., took a different tack. "We basically started working with them to try to improve the plan they put on the table," said Terry West, a 25-year resident and president of the group, which is one of the largest associations of its kind in the city. "They're in the business to make money. You have to acknowledge that."
Mr. West's association was also ready to acknowledge a wave of demographic changes that was beginning to erode Don Mills' aged base. "It's a renaissance taking place, there's no question about it," he said. "Life is changing. We're not living in the fifties and sixties any more."
gregv
Active Member
(rest of article)
ROSEDALE OF THE NORTH
Since its creation, Don Mills has strived to maintain a certain heterogeneity: a healthy mix of income levels and a blend of rental apartments and single-family dwellings. But, despite community organizers' efforts, the middle-class population is hollowing out.
From 2001 to 2006, the average household income jumped to $109,000 from $91,000, city figures show, even though there was not a significant amount of new residential development. During that same time, the median household income jumped to $74,000 from $65,000, and there was a nearly 10-per-cent jump in the number of families earning $100,000 or more. (At the other end of the spectrum, there are more people struggling with low incomes, and an overall thinning of those ranked between the two poles.)
If statistics leave any doubts, the foray of Toronto interior designer and television personality Sarah Richardson into the neighbourhood last year should erase them. Ms. Richardson grew up in central Toronto but found herself venturing east of the Don Valley while scouting for a home to purchase and renovate for the second-season instalment of her popular HGTV show, Sarah's House. Once she stripped her Don Mills acquisition - a 1960s back split - of its tired decor, she wound up feeling so cozy there that she held a rare open house for all her neighbours. Onscreen, she declared the transformation one of her all-time favourites.
"To me, it's become the Rosedale of the north up there," said Kara Reed, Ms. Richardson's Chestnut Park real-estate agent. "It's charming, it's comfortable, it feels safe ... and you're 15 minutes from downtown," she said. "It's changing now where young families are coming in. They've got great schools there. People are thinking, 'I can get way more house than I can in a little downtown semi-detached.' "
To a certain degree, Cadillac Fairview and its blue-chip tenants are banking on that. Aside from mcewan, the development, which opens officially on April 22, boasts the North American debut of high-end U.S. clothier Anthropologie, the first non-resort shop for ski and snowboard gear-maker Salomon and the first Ontario outpost of western Canadian bookseller McNally Robinson. Pickle Barrel partner and caterer Rose Reisman has also chosen the location to open her first restaurant, Glow.
While Mr. McEwan is also intent on attracting high-end customers, he's adamant that his store will not cater exclusively to the upper class. "I don't think anybody will find me onerous with cost. I'll be fair," he said. "I don't have five investors screaming down my neck for profit. I don't need to make a nickel in my first year in operation." (Still, the first few years are critical. If things go well, the shop will serve as a model for a mini-chain of up to three more stores.)
The addition of mcewan and other retailers - many of which are now only accessible downtown or in malls on the city's periphery - is predicted to draw not only traffic, but also new families to the area, Mr. West said. He suggests that will intensify as condominiums linked to the development begin to take shape.
Whether the sum of it all will amount to a full facelift in Don Mills remains to be seen. It's something Mr. West's organization is prepared to rally against. "We don't want to become an elite community," he said.
"We want to ensure that we have the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker."
Mcewan opens at 38 Karl Fraser Rd., mid-spring.
ROSEDALE OF THE NORTH
Since its creation, Don Mills has strived to maintain a certain heterogeneity: a healthy mix of income levels and a blend of rental apartments and single-family dwellings. But, despite community organizers' efforts, the middle-class population is hollowing out.
From 2001 to 2006, the average household income jumped to $109,000 from $91,000, city figures show, even though there was not a significant amount of new residential development. During that same time, the median household income jumped to $74,000 from $65,000, and there was a nearly 10-per-cent jump in the number of families earning $100,000 or more. (At the other end of the spectrum, there are more people struggling with low incomes, and an overall thinning of those ranked between the two poles.)
If statistics leave any doubts, the foray of Toronto interior designer and television personality Sarah Richardson into the neighbourhood last year should erase them. Ms. Richardson grew up in central Toronto but found herself venturing east of the Don Valley while scouting for a home to purchase and renovate for the second-season instalment of her popular HGTV show, Sarah's House. Once she stripped her Don Mills acquisition - a 1960s back split - of its tired decor, she wound up feeling so cozy there that she held a rare open house for all her neighbours. Onscreen, she declared the transformation one of her all-time favourites.
"To me, it's become the Rosedale of the north up there," said Kara Reed, Ms. Richardson's Chestnut Park real-estate agent. "It's charming, it's comfortable, it feels safe ... and you're 15 minutes from downtown," she said. "It's changing now where young families are coming in. They've got great schools there. People are thinking, 'I can get way more house than I can in a little downtown semi-detached.' "
To a certain degree, Cadillac Fairview and its blue-chip tenants are banking on that. Aside from mcewan, the development, which opens officially on April 22, boasts the North American debut of high-end U.S. clothier Anthropologie, the first non-resort shop for ski and snowboard gear-maker Salomon and the first Ontario outpost of western Canadian bookseller McNally Robinson. Pickle Barrel partner and caterer Rose Reisman has also chosen the location to open her first restaurant, Glow.
While Mr. McEwan is also intent on attracting high-end customers, he's adamant that his store will not cater exclusively to the upper class. "I don't think anybody will find me onerous with cost. I'll be fair," he said. "I don't have five investors screaming down my neck for profit. I don't need to make a nickel in my first year in operation." (Still, the first few years are critical. If things go well, the shop will serve as a model for a mini-chain of up to three more stores.)
The addition of mcewan and other retailers - many of which are now only accessible downtown or in malls on the city's periphery - is predicted to draw not only traffic, but also new families to the area, Mr. West said. He suggests that will intensify as condominiums linked to the development begin to take shape.
Whether the sum of it all will amount to a full facelift in Don Mills remains to be seen. It's something Mr. West's organization is prepared to rally against. "We don't want to become an elite community," he said.
"We want to ensure that we have the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker."
Mcewan opens at 38 Karl Fraser Rd., mid-spring.
androiduk
Senior Member
This is a great addition to the city and is long overdue for the neighbourhood. There are a lot of affluent pockets in the area who had to go to Bayview & Sheppard to satisfy their desires. I lived across the street from here when I was a kid and it was just your basic mall with a Dominion ("mainly because of the meat")
caltrane74
Senior Member
Don Mills Rocks!!
catcher_of_cats
Active Member
In the suburbs of Don Mills, developer re-creates Bloor West Village
Posted: February 25, 2009, 4:38 PM by Rob Roberts
By Stacey Askew, National Post
Don Mills, Canada’s first planned suburb, is the site of a whole new experiment: A transformation of a tired shopping mall into something urban.
Several years ago, Cadillac Fairview Corp. bulldozed the wan Don Mills Centre mall; on April 22, the development giant will unveil the tony Shops at Don Mills, a collection of standalone stores built along open-air streets, including chef Mark McEwan’s first gourmet market, Ontario’s first McNally Robinson bookstore and Canada’s first Anthropologie store.
Its pedestrian-friendly streets will be lined with trees; shoppers can enjoy an outdoor, 7,134 sq. ft. skating rink, central square with a fountain and a range of restaurants; there will be public art. Eventually, 1,300 high-rise residential units will be built on the site.
For Cadillac Fairview, which is opening this $200-million project in the middle of a recession, it is something of a risk, one analyst says.
“I think people will be watching Don Mills example very closely,’’ said Maureen Atkinson, a senior partner at the Canadian retail consulting firm J.C. Williams group. ‘‘Really, the only way to test it is to build it, and to lease to tenants and see how successful it actually is.â€
Cadillac Fairview owns the entire suburban block, except for a Canada Post facility and the Civitan arena. That allows the developer to build a whole city neighbourhood from scratch.
‘‘The results are more along the lines of Bloor West Village, where people walk from shop to shop outside,†said Anne Morash, vice-president of development for Cadillac Fairview. ‘‘We’ve built the Shops at Don Mills on a scale that’s very manageable — it’s a fraction of the size of what regional malls and big boxes typically are, so it’s efficient.’’
June Williamson, co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia, said the future of urban planning lies in making older established suburbs into something more urban. “Building up the suburbs has been the big product of the past century; retrofitting the suburbs is going to be the big project of the first half of the 21st century.’’
The old Don Mills Centre was itself a replacement of the strip mall built when Don Mills was created in the 1950s, as the developers embarked on creating the first industrial suburb.
The goal in Don Mills was to create a self-sustaining community that would include retail, industry, sidewalks and space allocated for industry. The ideal was to have a community that residents would never need to leave and could limit their automobile use within.
“It was originally conceived as something that could be self contained. There were a range of different jobs ... but that never could have happened and never did happen†said Richard Harris, author of Creeping Conformity: How Canada Became Suburban.
“It had lots of jobs and had lots of housing. It was a balanced community, but balanced doesn’t mean everyone lives and works in the same area,†he said.
As the neighbourhood around it has involved continually evolved since, so has the mall. It changed from an open air complex to a mall and housed the first suburban Eaton’s. In its last decade, it had gone into decline, mostly serving local seniors who used it as a social gathering place, playing cards in the food court with friends, and walking for exercise during the winter. A group called Don Mills Friends formed to protest the development, and continues to do so.
“The average age in the area is 45, the average age of our shoppers was much higher,†Ms. Morash said. “There were people in the neighbourhood who kind of said, ‘You might be right across the street from me but you don’t have what I need’.â€
At stake: the wallets and purses of some of Canada’s wealthiest, mostly unserved by retail currently. The average income in the neighbourhood around the Shops at Don Mills is above $100,000; it is only a few blocks from the Bridle Path.
Ms. Morash said the retail is ‘‘best-in-class,’’ not high end, and a lot of thought has gone into Ontario’s first ‘‘lifestyle centre’’ — as the model is called.
As much as Cadillac Fairview plays up the ‘‘urban’’ aspects, with ‘‘extra-wide sidewalks, awnings and the human-scaled proportions of our stores,’’ there are still more than 1,000 parking spaces for all those suburban motorists. Throwing high-rises into the mix is key, to give the project ready-made customers. Within the next seven years, seven residential towers — a density almost double that allowed under current zoning — are to be built right next to the shops. The proposal is under Ontario Municipal Board review.
‘‘We are confident in our outlook for the centre,’’ said Ms. Morash. ‘‘We feel the Shops at Don Mills will be one of the bright spots in the retail industry this year.’’
Posted: February 25, 2009, 4:38 PM by Rob Roberts
By Stacey Askew, National Post
Don Mills, Canada’s first planned suburb, is the site of a whole new experiment: A transformation of a tired shopping mall into something urban.
Several years ago, Cadillac Fairview Corp. bulldozed the wan Don Mills Centre mall; on April 22, the development giant will unveil the tony Shops at Don Mills, a collection of standalone stores built along open-air streets, including chef Mark McEwan’s first gourmet market, Ontario’s first McNally Robinson bookstore and Canada’s first Anthropologie store.
Its pedestrian-friendly streets will be lined with trees; shoppers can enjoy an outdoor, 7,134 sq. ft. skating rink, central square with a fountain and a range of restaurants; there will be public art. Eventually, 1,300 high-rise residential units will be built on the site.
For Cadillac Fairview, which is opening this $200-million project in the middle of a recession, it is something of a risk, one analyst says.
“I think people will be watching Don Mills example very closely,’’ said Maureen Atkinson, a senior partner at the Canadian retail consulting firm J.C. Williams group. ‘‘Really, the only way to test it is to build it, and to lease to tenants and see how successful it actually is.â€
Cadillac Fairview owns the entire suburban block, except for a Canada Post facility and the Civitan arena. That allows the developer to build a whole city neighbourhood from scratch.
‘‘The results are more along the lines of Bloor West Village, where people walk from shop to shop outside,†said Anne Morash, vice-president of development for Cadillac Fairview. ‘‘We’ve built the Shops at Don Mills on a scale that’s very manageable — it’s a fraction of the size of what regional malls and big boxes typically are, so it’s efficient.’’
June Williamson, co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia, said the future of urban planning lies in making older established suburbs into something more urban. “Building up the suburbs has been the big product of the past century; retrofitting the suburbs is going to be the big project of the first half of the 21st century.’’
The old Don Mills Centre was itself a replacement of the strip mall built when Don Mills was created in the 1950s, as the developers embarked on creating the first industrial suburb.
The goal in Don Mills was to create a self-sustaining community that would include retail, industry, sidewalks and space allocated for industry. The ideal was to have a community that residents would never need to leave and could limit their automobile use within.
“It was originally conceived as something that could be self contained. There were a range of different jobs ... but that never could have happened and never did happen†said Richard Harris, author of Creeping Conformity: How Canada Became Suburban.
“It had lots of jobs and had lots of housing. It was a balanced community, but balanced doesn’t mean everyone lives and works in the same area,†he said.
As the neighbourhood around it has involved continually evolved since, so has the mall. It changed from an open air complex to a mall and housed the first suburban Eaton’s. In its last decade, it had gone into decline, mostly serving local seniors who used it as a social gathering place, playing cards in the food court with friends, and walking for exercise during the winter. A group called Don Mills Friends formed to protest the development, and continues to do so.
“The average age in the area is 45, the average age of our shoppers was much higher,†Ms. Morash said. “There were people in the neighbourhood who kind of said, ‘You might be right across the street from me but you don’t have what I need’.â€
At stake: the wallets and purses of some of Canada’s wealthiest, mostly unserved by retail currently. The average income in the neighbourhood around the Shops at Don Mills is above $100,000; it is only a few blocks from the Bridle Path.
Ms. Morash said the retail is ‘‘best-in-class,’’ not high end, and a lot of thought has gone into Ontario’s first ‘‘lifestyle centre’’ — as the model is called.
As much as Cadillac Fairview plays up the ‘‘urban’’ aspects, with ‘‘extra-wide sidewalks, awnings and the human-scaled proportions of our stores,’’ there are still more than 1,000 parking spaces for all those suburban motorists. Throwing high-rises into the mix is key, to give the project ready-made customers. Within the next seven years, seven residential towers — a density almost double that allowed under current zoning — are to be built right next to the shops. The proposal is under Ontario Municipal Board review.
‘‘We are confident in our outlook for the centre,’’ said Ms. Morash. ‘‘We feel the Shops at Don Mills will be one of the bright spots in the retail industry this year.’’
bAuHaUs
Active Member
jks
Continuous Lurker
Well those parking lots seem awefully out of place, but I guess that's where the condos will go.
nfitz
Superstar
It's a dame shame that the first thing you see is a parking lot the entire length of Don Mills Road. They should be building a streetscape in here, particularily with the streetcar coming down Don Mills, and hiding parking somewhere else. Yeah, yet another suburban planning disaster.
khris
Senior Member
I was thinking the same thing. Unfortunately if the parking was put behind the buildings, then the entrances to those buildings would just be on the parking lot side, rather than the street side. This would result in a dead looking streetscape also.
nfitz
Superstar
It doesn't have to be that way.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
An interesting question will be whether it is more feasible to have "avenues" style development proceed this way, where the stores and services are located on a more pedestrian-friendly side street off the main arterial rather than on the arterial itself.
alklay
Senior Member
This is a disney-fied strip mall with chain stores. There is nothing here to get excited about.
doady
Senior Member
Have you guys ever seen the layout of a typical power centre??? Heartland, Orion Gate, 7 and 400, they don't even come close to this.