Toronto 1540 Bloor West | 91.9m | 27s | Trinity Group | IBI Group

rdaner

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From Toronto West on SSC:

At the northwest corner of Bloor and Dundas next to the Dundas West Station, there is a new development notice. It states that a proposal has been submitted to the City of Toronto's planning department for a 29 storey, 293 unit residential tower with 2 levels of retail.

The entire area will experience significant development over the next decade or two. Except for a 30 storey(approx.) twin tower residence across the street (northeast corner) and a 15 storey(approx.) at the southwest corner, the entire neighourhood is low-rise. In addition, Harry Stinson's High Park Lofts a few blocks south is nearing completion, although the structure is mid-rise.

Loblaws owns a significant area of land at the southeast corner behind the high school. Loblaws will completely rebuild its store into either a "St. Clair/Bathurst style property" or into a Real Canadian SuperStore (RCSS). Zellers is the only other major tenant on the property. The Loblaws property layout resembles an older suburban shopping plaza and could easily hold 4 residential towers.

Currently, the entire corner is owned by Joe Mercury's and will likely be the lead tenant in the new tower.

I could not locate any additional information on the Joe Mercury project or the Loblaws redevelopment project. If anyone out there has information, can you post it?
 
Where are our old community council report wizards?

This is great news. It's a perfect site for intensification. I hope it's a St.Clair/Bathurst-style Loblaws rather than an RCSS. It's good to have more grocery stores right on the subway.
 
It's a great site for more density - the crummy Crossways Place needs some company, as does the butt-ugly 2333 Dundas West 12 floor building (Bloor-Dundas Square).

29 floors is about right for a corner such as this.
 
The Loblaws property is certainly ripe for redevelopment. I would bet on a "St.Clair - Bathurst" type of Loblaws supermarket. I remember reading quite recently that Loblaw have put the RCSS concept to the back burner for now; apparently it needs rethinking.

This entire area has so much potential. It wouldn't take much to lift it from its present somewhat gritty and downscale atmosphere to something much better. It's close to the subway and High Park, two obvious appealing amenities.
 
Here's hoping the architecture of the new complex is far superior to what's on the other corners. The Crossways are no prize, but I have seen that building on the southwest corner singled out...

...as the ugliest building in the city. I just hope ugly doesn't beget more ugly.

42
 
Here's hoping the architecture of the new complex is far superior to what's on the other corners. The Crossways are no prize, but I have seen that building on the southwest corner singled out...

...as the ugliest building in the city. I just hope ugly doesn't beget more ugly.
42

The architecture for the proposal is quite unique - it will definitely be impressive once revealed publically.
 
while this development is welcome it'll kill my nice view of downtown from keele st. bummer. (I have a history of moving into a neighbourhood a few years before it becomes "cool" and developer/condo friendly--from king/portland village (was that a cool place to hang out in 1999? nope) to the w queen w district (not cool in 2001) to various other neighbourhoods across the country (downtown eastside vancouver definitely not cool--but now being condoized.) I wonder if the Weston family's development company is behind this new proposal? For some reason, I see something similar to that Danforth/Warden "Dutch-inspired" condo going up here. While the crossways place is terrible by day, at night it's kinda cool and from my bedroom view, looks like a huge office tower plunked down in my front yard.

The good news: by the time the condo towers rise, I'll be gone because I'm not cool enough for the condo kids. Destination: the hammer?

Still, Loblaws (possibly the worst loblaws in toronto--seriously it sucks)@dundas west has enough land to build 3000+ housing units on--good news for those pioneering Roncevilles Lofts purchasers, the vacant storefronts on upper Roncevilles and Dundas West, etc.
 
Sorry 42... but if successful I think it'll sort of blaze a trail for a number of other developers to come into the area - it is ripe for intensification. I could see a decent node of development growing at Dundas West Station over the next decade.
 
As others have said, this is a perfect area for intensification. Bloor subway, Roncesvalles/King, Dundas and College streetcar lines and the GO station make it one of the richest transit hubs in the city. This area should be a major sub-centre like Yonge/Eg.
 
Hopefully intensification will include major street animation. This is no place to build tall and ignore the street. Any Cityplace style towers should include a caveat that purchasers cannot shop on Roncesvalles or enter the park.
 
In the future at this location we could possibly have the BD line, 2-3 streetcar lines, and the always elusive DRL. If we saw a proper suburban rail network the GO station could potentially serve trains to Brampton, Mississauga, Woodbridge, Guelph/Kitchener, the airport, and with a fairly short tunnel section trains to Maple and Newmarket. This could really be Toronto's second mainline station.

The surrounding area has lots of developable land due to its former industrial nature. As such, I've long wanted to see the city develop a coordinated plan for the area focussing on serious intensification including office and retail components. Too bad it's not likely.
 
As a sculpted-red-brick skyline object, I actually think the Crossways deserves more than its due--trouble is, it was built when this kind of highrise residential urbanism was going out of fashion (the Crombie era, remember), it was a rental in a rent-control era increasingly favouring condos and co-ops, and it's grown a little dogeared over the years (esp. the retail concourse).

Somehow, I like the fact that it's still pretty thoroughly 70s top to bottom, no PoMo granite or stucco...even the lettering, which is up there w/LuCliff Place in its soothing Karen Carpenter quality...
 
I was always fascinated by Crossways. I thought of it as a sort of prototypical Empress Walk for the 70s. It may not be the prettiest, but at least the built form is interesting. Anyway, I had always wanted to visit the shopping concourse and I finally got my chance a couple weeks ago. It's definitely that dark-brick 70s down there, and many of the spaces are occupied by city services. So cool!
 

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