Toronto Wallace Walk Towns | ?m | 4s | The Somerset Group | KFA

A microbrewery, bar, cafe, nice brunch place, fitness centre and convenience store would be a good retail core mix to start help drive pedestrian traffic and community engagement. A fair amount of these spaces also look suitable for workshop, design studio, and craft making usage. Which is what we've been seeing a lot of form further north and east around Geary and even Brandon now in the last 2-3 years. Often the ice-breaker is the most difficult for the first bold business to settle in before the rest integrates. I imagine the Wallace Walk retail spaces will be an ongoing project that may take 3-5 years to fully flourish.
 
junctionist said:
I hope the cinderblocks aren't the final cladding along the Railpath. The Railpath is arguably the most important public space in the neighbourhood. The buildings that face it should have architectural facades, not mere back walls. Most of the buildings that currently face it were built when the Railpath was just railway tracks and architectural design didn't matter. But the Railpath exists, and the west-facing facades shouldn't have ugly cinder block walls.
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If they're not gonna put an actual facade here, then I'd like to see some murals painted across the whole thing. That may be the only way to mitigate this.
 
Johnny Au said:
What respectable family would want to live in a house with a badly spray-painted phallus drawn on the back?

Yes, the backs of the houses can have a beautiful mural instead.
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Not houses. Those are all commercial buildings and a community centre backing on to the Railpath.
 
Towered said:
Oh but according to many, we can't build retail strips like before.
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I can guarantee you this is a money loosing project, or at the very least extremely low margins.

The *only* reason this likely worked is the required 30m buffer from the rail corridor for residential uses. That requirement left a strip of land with basically 0 land value, allowing this commercial space to pencil out as construction costs would be basically the only input. You also had all the community benefit funds going to building this thing as well with the community space in it, helping the bottom line even more.

That said, yes, it’s a great space.
 
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more of these underutilized plots of land along railways developed into employment spaces. 1800 Davenport Rd is another example in the West End that has taken this approach, albeit more for industrial usage. There is a restaurant being planned though.

1800 Davenport Road (?, 2s, RGC Design Group)

From Cllr. Palacio's Newsletter: Some renderings from RGC's website - not RCG like indicated in the newsletter...:
urbantoronto.ca urbantoronto.ca
 
This strip totally reminds me of 229-247 Wallace Ave., just on the east side of the Barrie train corridor. Very similar buildings (other than community centre part, obviously). These took a while to be fully occupied, but now it's a great little strip. Brewery, cafe/restaurant, physiotherapy, etc.

I'm excited to see what ends up in here over the years. It's a bit more tucked away than the place on Wallace Ave. though.
 
It's fantastic to see this sort of mixing of uses. It makes neighbourhoods more vibrant and walkable. But this project was also a huge missed opportunity to make the Railpath more vibrant and attractive by having some storefronts facing it and attractive architectural details and art. Instead, all we got was a utilitarian back wall. The Railpath adds so much value to the neighbourhood. It deserved more than what it got.
 
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