Toronto Via Bloor | 138.37m | 46s | Tridel | a—A

May still have to lower your expectations to Tim Hortons and Dollarama. For something different, a JVSK could be the destination attracting renters from both sides of the ravine.
 
There is zero pedestrian traffic along this part of Bloor East. Car traffic dominates. There is no parking and speed picks up. It's a horrible place to walk. There will probably be pedestrian traffic migrating north to Howard Street from St Jamestown but it's not going to be an upper middle class, monied, crowd. I'm happy the site is getting developed, just a little surprised that it's being marketed as a luxury project.
 
It needs a night club, where Rosedale money and east end artists will come together to showcase cutting edge electronic music, hip hop, and R&B in a brilliantly designed and acoustically perfect venue that will attract the finest artists of the world.
 
maestro said:
In a retail space cobbled together under a condo tower.
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That's the beauty of a blank canvass new development. It can be made into anything.

My comment was merely a thought exercise. It's a challenging location for retail, so you have to think outside of the box or accept something extremely banal like a Dollarama. You need destination businesses to avoid the banal--the kind of places that people will go out of their way to visit.
 
It's early days yet. One day, not too many years down the road, there will be plenty of retail along this strip. When new buildings come - residential or office or both - the retail follows suit. More street traffic will happen. It's part of a cycle of urban development. Just because some of us are having a hard time envisioning it doesn't mean it won't happen. Might take some time of course, but less time than one might think.
 
junctionist said:
That's the beauty of a blank canvass new development. It can be made into anything.

My comment was merely a thought exercise. It's a challenging location for retail, so you have to think outside of the box or accept something extremely banal like a Dollarama. You need destination businesses to avoid the banal--the kind of places that people will go out of their way to visit.
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It's not a development site and therefore not a blank canvas. Ground floor retail under condo towers will have zoning limits. They are also usually owned by investment portfolios that want extremely banal tenants. Extremely banal tenants are usually more willing to pay higher rents and they also increase the market value of the development. It's a win win on the bottom line.
 
Lenser said:
It's early days yet. One day, not too many years down the road, there will be plenty of retail along this strip. When new buildings come - residential or office or both - the retail follows suit. More street traffic will happen. It's part of a cycle of urban development. Just because some of us are having a hard time envisioning it doesn't mean it won't happen. Might take some time of course, but less time than one might think.
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You can say all you want. I'm still having a very hard time where all this retail is supposed to go. The north side of Bloor is a valley. To the east of this is a graveyard. To the west is some potential but, not much and probably not for continuous retail. I've seen mixed use fire houses. I don't think Toronto is going to go that direction anytime soon with existing stations. There's also a church and a hacked off historic street back when Bloor was expanded.
 
Hey, you can doubt all you want, too! Guess we'll see what happens, won't we. Neither one of us has a crystal ball.
 
Lenser said:
It's early days yet. One day, not too many years down the road, there will be plenty of retail along this strip. When new buildings come - residential or office or both - the retail follows suit. More street traffic will happen. It's part of a cycle of urban development. Just because some of us are having a hard time envisioning it doesn't mean it won't happen. Might take some time of course, but less time than one might think.
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Agree. There are always people who can't imagine something unless it's physically in front of them. You see it all the time on those home reno shows and you see it on sites like this. I still remember a time when the majority of people thought towers up Yonge all the way from the lake to Yorkville was laughable. Some still do even though it's happening right in front of them.

We'll eventually get retail strips parallel to Yonge on Church and Bay, then a few east-west retail strips connecting it altogether. The east end of downtown is only starting to densify. It too will eventually see major retail, amenities, etc. being built. It's dependent on Toronto continuing to grow. At this point we'd have to get hit by a meteor to derail things.
 
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As long as the country remains politically stable and the economy doesn't seriously derail, we will continue to see strong population growth in this city, much of it being driven by immigration. Which in turn means growth/densification along established (and coming) public transit infrastructure.
 
maestro said:
It's not a development site and therefore not a blank canvas. Ground floor retail under condo towers will have zoning limits. They are also usually owned by investment portfolios that want extremely banal tenants. Extremely banal tenants are usually more willing to pay higher rents and they also increase the market value of the development. It's a win win on the bottom line.
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Of course it's a development site. Construction hasn't started on the building itself yet. Now is the time to figure out how to make the building successful and apply for any zoning amendments.

An outstanding public realm and interesting business uses could even spur increased interest and investment in the adjacent buildings of St. James Town.
 
The time for zoning amendments has passed… as in fact, the zoning amendments have already been passed. There is nearly 18,700 sq ft of retail coming.

It will take a while to fill up, and I would not expect that the first assortment of retailers will necessarily be there over the long term: it can take years for the right assortment to come together to serve local needs. Who knows how it will all shake out as, yup, this is a transitional spot with the monied living across the ravine to the north, the over-leveraged moving into the condos in a few years (or their renters), and a sizeable number of the not-so-well-off to the immediate south. It's going to be a challenge finding the right mix here.

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Good description of the immediate neighbourhood! A mixed bag, alright. Agreed, too, on your observation about new retail being in flux; as we've seen before, retail in a new development can be pretty hit and miss; it can take years before things get sorted out as to what's really needed by the community it's serving.
 
It's also true that not all condo buyers (both investors and those who actually intend to live in them) adhere to the "location, location, location" credo. We know that many buyers bite on the allure of some combination of flash sales centres and scale models, the prospect of picking some of their own finishes, the thought of basking in what look like spa-style amenities, and so on and so on, without thinking too much about what is in an immediate 3-minute walking radius of their future unit.

In a way, what that might mean for new retail is that if the immediate surroundings aren't super compelling, and with a development as sizable as this one, it could make the first-mover advantage for a retailer that's new to the area even more compelling; you've got a significant captive audience plopped literally on top of you with no other competitor around. If I'm an indie cafe or juice shop owner, per se, I might be looking for exactly this type of opportunity for expansion into a hitherto uncharted water for that type of offering.
 
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