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Toronto City Council recently adopted the Office Portfolio Optimization plan of the ModernTO program which aims at reducing the City's office locations from 55 to 15 across the municipality. Offices at City Hall, Metro Hall, Scarborough Civic Centre, North York Civic Centre and the new Etobicoke Civic Centre are being redesigned to become modern hubs that will be able to accommodate up to 5,600 additional employees through efficiencies and new approaches; a hybrid model is being pursued. While the City modernizes its office space and practices, the municipal government will save money and generate new efficiencies.
In this step, eight locations that the City currently has offices in are able to be given up, allowing the redevelopment of those sites. A re-accommodation strategy is being determined for each site, focusing on relocating non-office uses to fully unlock properties. The eight office locations identified for city-building opportunities are:
Each of the eight sites will include a minimum of 33% affordable housing, plus city service improvements such as Paramedic Multi-Hubs. Any re-development within the ModernTO portfolio will be required to meet, at a minimum, Tier 2 of the Toronto Green Standards, and all of the proposed re-developments are to include public realm improvements and/or streetscape enhancements.
Five of the sites are available for redevelopment in the short term, and three in the long term. Of the five sites available in the short term, three of them are to be redeveloped, and two are to be repurposed for other city uses.
The short term sites are:
610 Bay Street (former Toronto Coach Terminal and Elizabeth Street Terminal)
Proposed is a mixed-income, mixed-use, high-rise development with market condo and rental units, affordable housing, a paramedic multi-hub, employment uses with a preference for life science partnerships, adaptive heritage re-use, streetscape improvements, while some monies raised from lands sales will be set aside for the Land Acquisition Reserve Fund (LARF).
931 Yonge Street
Proposed is a mixed-income, mixed-use, high-rise development to include affordable ownership housing. Guiding design principles for this vision include optimizing the site to achieve appropriate density while minimizing shadow impacts on adjacent parks and green spaces, and enhanced public realm opportunities while fostering sustainability.
277 Victoria Street
A high-rise, mixed-use, institutional development with retail and/or community space on the ground and second floors is proposed for this site. The site-specific guiding principles developed for this site include capitalizing on a unique location adjacent to Yonge-Dundas Square while incorporating streetscape and public realm improvements, potential adaptive heritage reuse, and fostering sustainability.
The buildings that are to be repurposed are:
95 The Esplanade – Ground Floor
The Property is proposed to be repurposed for City services, entrepreneurship or incubator space, or for a not-for-profit below market rent tenant. With the retail/commercial market depressed due to COVID-19 impacts, the proposal for this site is to keep it for City uses and revisit a sale option in approximately five to ten years, or when the retail market supports a more favourable business case.
18 Dyas Road
The property is proposed to be re-purposed for new City uses with a Paramedics Multi-Function Station Hub as the primary use. The proposed concept would also house a fuel station to be relocated from Oriole Yards, subsequently allowing for a better development, additional density, and more affordable housing units as part of the Housing Now offering on that site. The fuel station is required to be maintained in proximity to Oriole Yard to service City Fleet, making the site a suitable alternative, as it is less than 3km away from its current location.
The long term sites will have more detailed updates and visions provided for them in subsequent reports submitted to the City. These sites require more planning as they involve other aspects of city-building including transit and hydro, amongst others. These long term sites include:
33 Queen Street East
Timing of work based on Ontario Line Construction
1900 Yonge Street
Timing of work based on TTC Master Control Centre relocation
75 Elizabeth Street
Timing of work based on Hydro One Major Infrastructure
As more information on these projects come, threads and database files will be established for each. In the meantime, you can leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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