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Stockyards, The (30 Weston Rd. @ St. Clair, retail, Trinity, 2s, GreenbergFarrow)

junctionist said:
It certainly doesn't threaten the survival of the Junction. The businesses on Dundas serve different market segments than the mainstream retailers which will come to this development. Those selling the same stuff in the Junction's more traditional retail areas have proven resilient: the Junction retains two small hardware stores on Dundas and Annette despite the presence of Home Depot, Rona, Canadian Tire and Walmart nearby. Let's not forget that this is the northern part of the Junction, and it should develop into a walkable, dense area over time. Bloor West Village has the subway and an affluent population within walking distance. It'll do fine. I can see some malls being affected, though.

The existing Stock Yards plazas can still be redeveloped, and probably will be in time. Home Depot, for instance, could build a new store on the southern part of their site, allowing mixed-use development to front St. Clair.
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Yea I'm sorry ... those areas will feel 0 impact whatsoever ... I'm not sure how you can possibly think they would ...

To say the least the areas - particularly bloor west village are not very close at all, secondly as mentioned above it's a completely different market segment.
This development will mainly be large scale retail (i.e. big box stores) ... for the most part none of these exists in the areas you mention. Other then that it'll be brand name clothing stores and the like i.e. what you find in malls - and again, these main stream stores do not exists in either area.
 
Indeed. I thought that the 41 Keele's re-routing onto Weston Road and Rogers would help (as does the permanent 41E), and it does less than I thought, despite the terrible bottleneck the 2-lane St. Clair is now with the ROW under the CN and CP tracks between Keele and Old Weston that the 41 normally does.

The traffic on Keele/Weston to and from Black Creek Drive is the main issue, this clogs up worse than the norm for Toronto rush hour. This why the DRL should run northwest as well as northeast. Or, it sounds terrible from an urban standpoint, but could Weston Road be improved for traffic? At least some more turning lanes, how about a long right turn/bus queue-jump lane from Northbound Weston to Rogers Road, and let the buses (including the 89s) beat some of the queue? The only casualty would be a Petro-Canada station.

Or how about the Keele Street gap elimination?
 
Yeah, that area needs some large-scale investment. It looks like after the Highway 400 extension project died, they just left everything as it was, without rapid transit or road capacity. It's messy and dysfunctional. The street life and architecture is far from spectacular, too.
 
I was riding the 41E up again this evening, and saw that hoarding has started to go up right at the corner of Keele and St. Clair.

I hate to think this, but after sitting in traffic forever on the "express bus" tonight, that section of Weston Road is really dodgy and lined with marginal businesses for the most part. I think Weston between St. Clair/Keele and Black Creek should have been rebuilt as a six-lane Boulevard, and probably still could be, especially as one side of the road abuts the tracks and won't negate and hope of urbanizing that stretch.

The other big problem is that St. Clair was done on the cheap a new underpass should have been built at the CN/CP to allow two driving lanes through there, and bike lanes to connect to the Davenport bike lanes via Old Weston Road. The only casualty might have been the Delta Bingo, no big loss.
 
http://www.insidetoronto.com/article/971221--stockyards-to-go-mid-rise-mixed-use-main-street

Stockyards to go mid-rise, mixed-use main street

Community council approves transformation of St. Clair Avenue West

TAMARA SHEPHARD|Mar 24, 2011 - 10:42 AM

St. Clair Avenue West will be revisioned into a main street of mid-rise, mixed-use commercial residential developments.
Etobicoke York Community Council this week unanimously approved city planning staff recommendations to further transform the stretch of St. Clair formerly known as The Stockyards beyond its most recent big box and retail cluster redevelopment.
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St. Clair's frontage would be redeveloped with mid-rise buildings with retail at-grade.

A stretch dominated by auto service and sales businesses would be gradually replaced with other low-scale retail and six to 10-storey, mixed-use buildings. Permission for mid-rise, mixed-use development could prove financial incentive for auto business owners to sell and relocate, the 72-page staff report suggests.
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While big box and retail development in the past 15 years is not expected to redevelop, the study contemplates retail uses relocated in future to the south end of the study area. The residential neighbourhood between Gunns and Symes roads would remain.
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"St. Clair really is an eyesore. It needs to be cleaned up," said Nunziata, who has lived in the area since 1963. "This is good news for our area. The area of The Stockyards has been neglected for years. Residents in the area deserve some revitalization and now they're going to get some good development along St. Clair Avenue."
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A huge future retail project known as the Trinity development may prove a new prototype for multi-storey retail development with parking structures rather than surface parking, said Paul Bain, the city's project manager for the St. Clair Avenue West Avenue Study.
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More information from new article posted today:

http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/local/article/1249609--building-the-future-st-clair-avenue-west

This redevelopment would take place in addition to the big box and plaza retail project known as the Trinity development underway at the corner of Weston Road and St. Clair Avenue with tenants such as Best Buy and Target expected to move in by the fall of 2013.

Toronto city council had approved last December the retail power centre to be built on the approximately 20-acre site, bounded by St. Clair on the south, Weston on the east and Gunns Road on both the west and north sides.

According to a planning report approved by council, the development will consist of a retail warehouse at the north end of the property with a maximum size of 6,565 square metres. A further 45,000 square metres of space will be built in mid-sized and smaller stores that will line Weston, St. Clair and Gunns, at a height of two storeys.

That report also highlighted 1,784 parking spaces that will be located in two three-level parking structures in the interior of the site.
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This retail development is going to bring even more traffic into an area that already cannot handle the current level of traffic.

As a nearby resident, it is very frustrating.
 
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Could use some residential. I know theres hundreds of townhomes on both sides of this proposal, but a tower or two couldn't hurt.
I don't think it's all that bad for this hood. Reminds me of shops at don mills.
 
DC83 said:
Could use some residential. I know theres hundreds of townhomes on both sides of this proposal, but a tower or two couldn't hurt.
I don't think it's all that bad for this hood. Reminds me of shops at don mills.
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I don't mind the project at all ... but this proposal should have triggered a city solution to the Old Weston / St. Clair Ave traffic problem. It already needs to be addressed. Adding a retail power centre will only exacerbate the nightmare.
 
DC83 said:
Could use some residential. I know theres hundreds of townhomes on both sides of this proposal, but a tower or two couldn't hurt.
I don't think it's all that bad for this hood. Reminds me of shops at don mills.
Click to expand...

It's definitely a step up from the rock bottom big-box retail that the province brought to the area when they decided to redevelop their stock yards lands in the 1990s. This new shopping centre will have a large concentration of retail in one space, with storefronts all along St. Clair, the main street. It will break up the block with new private streets with retail that should be pedestrian friendly.

Existing stores like the Home Depot or Canadian Tire just have walls and parking lots along the streets in the area (even on St. Clair), and those parking lots are massive. This project stacks parking internally. The area is finally moving towards being urban. The St. Clair Avenue Study will also help it move in the right direction. The big box lands would be great for towers and midrise buildings incorporating retail by the street. More residential development is really needed for a sense of a neighbourhood to develop, and so that the city pays more attention to the area in planning and maintaining infrastructure and public spaces.
 
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