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Toronto Weston Flea Market future redevelopment (Old Weston Rd, n of St. Clair W, ?, ?s, ?)

AlbertC

AlbertC

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The current lease for the Toronto Weston Flea Market on Old Weston Rd, north of St. Clair W, will be expiring on October 31st, 2019 and they have no plans to renew it.

It has been known already in the community that this site has been sold and will redeveloped in the future.

www.blogto.com

One of Toronto's favourite flea markets is closing after more than 20 years

The Toronto Weston Flea Market will soon be no more. After more than two decades, the 60,000-square-foot weekend bazaar on Old Weston Road will cl...
www.blogto.com www.blogto.com
 
This is a huge plot of land and so much opportunity for that intersection. With Reunion Condo project across the street this could be one of the largest projects in the area.
 
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Here is the ownership information. I believe Neudorfer is controlled by Tom Falus and his son Robert Falus.

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In another thread I was discussing the challenges that this site may have with regard to employment lands conversion, and I repeat some of those things as follows:

Here is the OP map showing that the site is General Employment:

209350


The new provincial policy creates a new path to conversion, but it's still not a walk in the park. A developer or speculator buying employment lands should act very carefully. A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (May 2019) allows employment land conversions as follows:

2.2.5.9 The conversion of lands within employment areas to non-employment uses may be permitted only through a municipal comprehensive review where it is demonstrated that:

a) there is a need for the conversion;
b) the lands are not required over the horizon of this Plan for the employment purposes for which they are designated;
c) the municipality will maintain sufficient employment lands to accommodate forecasted employment growth to the horizon of this Plan;
d) the proposed uses would not adversely affect the overall viability of the employment area or the achievement of the minimum intensification and density targets in this Plan, as well as the other policies of this Plan; and
e) there are existing or planned infrastructure and public service facilities to accommodate the proposed uses.

2.2.5.10 Notwithstanding policy 2.2.5.9, until the next municipal comprehensive review, lands within existing employment areas may be converted to a designation that permits non-employment uses, provided the conversion would:

a) satisfy the requirements of policy 2.2.5.9 a), d) and e);
b) maintain a significant number of jobs on those lands through the establishment of development criteria; and
c) not include any part of an employment area identified as a provincially significant employment zone.
Click to expand...

And the City's Planning and Housing Committee just adopted the following staff recommendation:

4. City Council advise the Province that the City of Toronto does not support the proposed policy 1.3.2.5 that would allow employment land conversions to occur in advance of the Municipal Comprehensive Review.
Click to expand...

Which indicates a general resistance among staff and this Committee to the idea of non-MCR conversions. We'll see what happens at Council, but I'd bet they adopt the Committee action.
 
Flea market winds down after more than two decades on Old Weston Road

By Jason Miller Staff Reporter
Sun., Oct. 27, 2019

Scavetta said that he and his brother — whom he called a “master entrepreneur” — opened on Old Weston Road in 1999. At it’s busiest, the baazaar hosted about 270 vendors.

Scavetta does not know what’s next for the sprawling site, which previously housed a grocery store and another flea market before the Scavettas took over.

“I hear through the grapevine they’re going to make here into a storage place, but I can’t say for sure,” he said. The current owner of the site declined to comment.
Click to expand...


www.thestar.com

Flea market winds down after more than two decades on Old Weston Road

After two decades on Old Weston Road, the manager of the flea market has decided to close its doors, citing the burden of his brother’s tragic death t...
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com
 
Anyone have an update here? I live close to the site and it is fast becoming a real neighbourhood blight. How long can an enormous lot like this realistically remain empty? The property taxes must be insane.
 
If you look two posts up, @Kenojuak wisely lays out the OPA 231 conversion that will have to take place here for anything but employment to exist on this site. It's a long process - one of the most difficult OPAs and rezonings to achieve. It'll be years before any project here moves forward.
 
ProjectEnd said:
If you look two posts up, @Kenojuak wisely lays out the OPA 231 conversion that will have to take place here for anything but employment to exist on this site. It's a long process - one of the most difficult OPAs and rezonings to achieve. It'll be years before any project here moves forward.
Click to expand...

Yes I saw - it's a shame that it's such a long process, I didn't realize it could take years. It's amazing to me that the owner can afford to leave it vacant for that long, unless there's some interim plan for employment on the site, which I assume would be tough; it's quite run-down. In any event it's worth getting the plans right, this is a critical site at an intersection that's overdue for revitalization.

Does anyone here know whether a GO station is still planned for the tracks immediately adjacent?
 
kieranpetrasek said:
Yes I saw - it's a shame that it's such a long process, I didn't realize it could take years. It's amazing to me that the owner can afford to leave it vacant for that long, unless there's some interim plan for employment on the site, which I assume would be tough; it's quite run-down. In any event it's worth getting the plans right, this is a critical site at an intersection that's overdue for revitalization.

Does anyone here know whether a GO station is still planned for the tracks immediately adjacent?
Click to expand...

I had the exact same questions. It seems like such a big opportunity to revitalize that area - whether it be employment or mixed use.

The last I heard the Old Weston station was planned, but the preliminary studies showed it would have very low ridership, so was not a priority (which seemed short sighted to me).

I emailed metrolinx and wasn’t able to get an answer. I’m hoping someone else has more information.
 
As best as we know, @kieranpetrasek @sebajun, yes the station is still on the books, along with a number of others—the planning certainly is—and Metrolinx simply has not made the announcements for any of them yet, so there are not likely to say anything publicly until they are ready to go. I think a lot of this is coming part-in-parcel with electrification, and apparently planning for that is taking FOREVER.

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Someone at the Reunion Crossing sales centre suggested that they might build rental apartments here, though I'm not sure about that in light of the zoning. Realistically, what demand is there for commercial development at this location? If they can only get big box retail, they might as well do big box retail and condos on top.

Surely, the city can be flexible with employment lands zoning. A lot of employment lands outside of the downtown core are the legacy of when there was a lot of demand for heavy industry and manufacturing uses, which is demand that has largely disappeared within the City of Toronto, especially closer to the downtown core. Witness the Stockyards area, where the employment lands used to be occupied by slaughterhouses. Now, they're occupied by single storey big box stores, but much of the land is just surface parking.

Is that really the best use of scarce land in the city?
 
This plot of land has tons of opportunity which is rare in the city core so it would be wise to use this land as multipurpose for living, retail and office space. But they also need to think about traffic this will bring. I remember hearing about the expansion along st. clair under the bridge ? With 3 new condos in that corner I can't imagine the amount of additional traffic that will happen along that stretch. i'm thinking this would need to be figured out before another building is approved or it will just be a gridlock all day long.
 
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