Toronto Bathurst College Centre | ?m | 4s | RioCan | Turner Fleischer

Walmart only signed on a few months ago. The city planning department can't say no just because it's Walmart. As far as city planning is concern they can't discriminate against any retailer,... and they would eventually approve this application,... the existing 8 variances are quite minor.

Interestingly,... now that Honest Ed location is up for sale,... if Rio-Can were to acquire that property and convert it to a Walmart,... Hmmmm,.... City can't really say anything, there's already a big box store there now (HonestEd) but buyer can't convert it to another big box (Walmart) store. If I was Rio-Can I'd be looking into that possibility,... Bathurst & Bloor is a much better location on Subway line,... and with new condos going up in the area,... likely get approval to build condo on top!

The HonestEd big box store at Bathurst and Bloor is great example of where a big box store benefited the neighbourhood,... for years, especially during HonestEd's heydays decades ago (before HonestEd retired and passed on),.... the HonestEd big box store brought lots of shoppers into the Bloor-Bathurst / Annex area,... and the surrounding stores and restaurants benefited and thrived,.... today, that stretch of retail on Bloor is very popular,.. thanks to that BigBox HonestEd store. A great example of raising tides lift all boats,...

And let's face it,... over the years the Annex benefited greatly from the Honest Ed big box store,... Could you imagine what the Annex would be like if there never was an HonestEd bigbox store at Bloor & Bathurst? That stretch of Bloor would have likely been a bunch of flea-market dollar store, strip joints, booze cans,....
 
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Interestingly,... for this project,... there's only 8 minor variances,... Rio-Can initially went straight to the OMB without dealing with the city. OMB told Rio-Can to deal with the city on these minor variances.

Rio-Can deals with the city,... and the city insists and recommends:
- street level first floor must be divided into 10 smaller stores with cement walls.
- more windows and brick exterior to match the surrounding neigbourhood better
- artistic flare for "roofline" so it won't look like a huge box
- Rio-Can was basically told to build a version of their iconic Queen&Portland (southwest corner) urban shopping centre without the condo on top.

Then Rio-Can get all this crap,... NIMBYs - Friends of Kensington,... local city councillors getting undebated one year ban on development in the area while "Bathurst is being studied",...

Now Rio-Can can go back to OMB,... and basically say city is discriminating against our project based on our tenant. That's like developer going to Human Rights Tribunal saying city and special interest groups are discriminating on our proposal because we plan to house people who colour happen to be "blue with yellow polka-dots",... discrimination!

OMB sees how tough it is for Rio-Can to deal with city,... OMB will likely just approve this Rio-Can's development since the 8 variances are so minor. Then all that stuff that city Planning was insisting and recommending Rio-Can implement for this project becomes null and void,... and they go out the window,... literally! The sub-division of 10 smaller stores at street-level, more windows, brick exterior and artistic roof-line could all be gone! City planning won't have a say anymore,.... and what we'll end up with will be a huge stucco painted window-less big box,... literally.

If it gets built without the sub-division into 10 smaller stores at street-level,... then the original tenant comes into play,... and then some of the locals will be crying for Walmart.
 
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Unbelievable. Why on earth are they so adamant about a Walmart? It's as if it's out of spite. I know they're greedy, unethical developers, but why can't they make just as much (if not more) money from a condominium with smaller retail at the bottom? Is a Walmart the only way they know how to make money out of this site?
 
Walmart

arvelomcquaig said:
Unbelievable. Why on earth are they so adamant about a Walmart? It's as if it's out of spite. I know they're greedy, unethical developers, but why can't they make just as much (if not more) money from a condominium with smaller retail at the bottom? Is a Walmart the only way they know how to make money out of this site?
Click to expand...

...WALMART ...is the best!
 
Yes but we need residential / office as well, ignore walmart, can you not see other faults with building what is effectively a 3 story mall ? With no other uses ...

B-street condos isn't much further north, why couldn't something similar, with 3 stories of retail (and a walmart if you like) go in the base. Maybe 10 stories overall ...
 
arvelomcquaig said:
Unbelievable. Why on earth are they so adamant about a Walmart? It's as if it's out of spite. I know they're greedy, unethical developers, but why can't they make just as much (if not more) money from a condominium with smaller retail at the bottom? Is a Walmart the only way they know how to make money out of this site?
Click to expand...

Not nearly as adamant as the Kensington Market folks and local councillors are against Walmart,.... and trust me, you have not seen spite yet,.... this is a premiere violinist!

I can almost hear the Walmart Price Roll-back!
 
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arvelomcquaig said:
Unbelievable. Why on earth are they so adamant about a Walmart? It's as if it's out of spite. I know they're greedy, unethical developers, but why can't they make just as much (if not more) money from a condominium with smaller retail at the bottom? Is a Walmart the only way they know how to make money out of this site?
Click to expand...

How do you "know" they are "unethical"?

A pretty strong accusation against a property owner that simply doesn't share your view of the world... I also don't share the view that walmart is an appropriate tenant for this location - but I'm not going to call someone unethical based on the proposed tenancy within their planning application.
 
I wouldn't say developers are necessarily "unethical" so much as they are "operating within a capitalist system in which large profit is the most important factor, coming far before other, arguably more important concerns that one would hope would be taken into consideration."
 
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taal said:
Yes but we need residential / office as well, ignore walmart, can you not see other faults with building what is effectively a 3 story mall ? With no other uses ...

B-street condos isn't much further north, why couldn't something similar, with 3 stories of retail (and a walmart if you like) go in the base. Maybe 10 stories overall ...
Click to expand...

One of the concerns that neighbourhood folks have had is on the height of the proposal (at three stories...) 10 stories would have caused World War III, Toronto edition.
 
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