sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
About 10 years ago,.. the previous long time Councillor for the area John Filion - fresh after his failed A-La-Cart fiasco ($30K per cart, many vendors lost their life savings https://torontolife.com/food/filion...ne-thing-the-city-messed-up-on-was-the-carts/ ) - decided it would be great to have a St.Lawence Market venture up here in Willowdale,... and to utilize Section 37 Community Benefit money to create the space (namely ground floor retail along north-side of this Sorbara Beacon and adjacent south-side of Centrium - now G-Group's Ellie Condo with open outdoor space in between for to act as Mew to host outdoor events/gatherings). A St.Lawrence Market with Cheese Counter, Butcher shop, Bakery, Fish counter, Deli shop - hey, they just invented the perimeter of a supermarket without the core goods!!!
After they failed to secure such vendors and realizing area Supermarkets already provide such services,... the FLIP Kitchen Food Incubator was started - operators from equity seeking groups providing food type not found in the area (while there's many restaurants along Yonge St, they mostly centre around Asian noodle, Korean and Bubble Tea to serve the local demographic - here, that's not allowed, these dishes are unfamiliar to most locals),.... then the original non-profit operator bailed.
A new non-profit operator brought in, but FLIP Kitchen tenants choose not to continue,... so evictions,...
Meanwhile adjacent G-Group's Ellie Condo is finishing up,... with their ground-floor retail space along south-side about to be conveyed to City as Section 37 Community Benefit,.... a FLIP Kitchen2 would be another failure,... so movement is to convert to Non-Profit Childcare space but likely EarlyON,...
This is a good example of the City and previous City Councillor wasting Section 37 Community Benefit money!
After they failed to secure such vendors and realizing area Supermarkets already provide such services,... the FLIP Kitchen Food Incubator was started - operators from equity seeking groups providing food type not found in the area (while there's many restaurants along Yonge St, they mostly centre around Asian noodle, Korean and Bubble Tea to serve the local demographic - here, that's not allowed, these dishes are unfamiliar to most locals),.... then the original non-profit operator bailed.
A new non-profit operator brought in, but FLIP Kitchen tenants choose not to continue,... so evictions,...
Meanwhile adjacent G-Group's Ellie Condo is finishing up,... with their ground-floor retail space along south-side about to be conveyed to City as Section 37 Community Benefit,.... a FLIP Kitchen2 would be another failure,... so movement is to convert to Non-Profit Childcare space but likely EarlyON,...
This is a good example of the City and previous City Councillor wasting Section 37 Community Benefit money!