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A transit-oriented development proposal in Toronto's Brockton Village area was recently revised and resubmitted to the City. Located at 1319 Bloor Street West on the the southwest corner with St Helens Avenue, and directly adjacent the Barrie GO rail corridor, many tweaks have been made to the Hariri Pontarini Architects-designed proposal by developer KingSett Capital, with the most significant changes being a reduction in height and the expansion of proposed park area by 20%.
Originally submitted to the City at the end of 2020, 1319 Bloor West is proposed as two residential towers of 27 and 31 storeys rising from a shared podium. While bringing 825 residential units to the site, the complex includes retail along Bloor while also housing a new GO station. The original proposal included a new 867m² public park on the southeastern corner of the site fronting on St Helen’s Avenue. This space was proposed to connect with a POPS (Privately-Owned Publicly accessible Space) that would be 421m² in area, as well as a multi-use path that would link the new community gathering space to a south entrance to the proposed Bloor-Lansdowne GO station.
In the resubmission, the parkland has been extended westward on the site to include the area formerly devoted to POPS, thus increasing the size of the parkland from 867m² to 1,077m². The increase in parkland is intended to accommodate both the required parkland dedication for this development plus another KingSett proposal three blocks west at 1425 Bloor Street West.
Landscape design for the new outdoor space remains in the hands of Ferris + Associates Inc. Due to the expanded parkland area, the POPS has been reconfigured as a pedestrian walkway which would connect the proposed parkland at the south of the site to the Bloor frontage, partly via an at-grade breezeway that has been carved out of the podium. The addition of the breezeway has resulted in a decrease of approximately 475m² in retail gross floor area that was previously proposed to front onto Bloor.
Other changes in the resubmission include the original storey count decreasing from 31 and 33 storeys to 27 and 31 storeys. The building heights decreased as a result, from 115.4 metres and 109.4 metres to 105.3 metres and 93.9 metres. They will remain situated atop a U-shaped podium that would wrap around the west, north, and east sides of the site. Despite the reduced heights of the towers, the total unit count increases from 634 to 825 units while the proposed parking count increases from 215 to 268 parking spaces.
The site is already close by significant transit infrastructure; Lansdowne subway station is one block to the east of the site, while four blocks to the west is Bloor GO station which includes a UP Express stop. Dundas West subway station is another block west. Buses serve Lansdowne station, while streetcars and buses serve Dundas West. With another GO station planned here, the area is seeing several significant development proposals.
The changes have been made in response to City feedback including the comments made by the Toronto Design Review Panel in April, 2021. Their comments can be read in the linked article.
How do you feel about the resubmission? If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page. We will keep you updated as the design for 1319 Bloor West continues to evolve, but in the meantime you can learn more from our Database file for the project, linked below.
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| Related Companies: | BDP Quadrangle, Bousfields, Ferris + Associates Inc., Grounded Engineering Inc., Hariri Pontarini Architects, RWDI Climate and Performance Engineering |
