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Just south of Bloor Street and the Dundas West subway station is an 11-acre site with shopping mall and car park – essentially a large asphalt pad. A revised proposal by Choice Properties REIT could stitch together the neighbourhood with new housing, new and improved retail spaces, and a new public park, providing a unifying community focal point. Choice resubmitted a proposal to redevelop their existing land holdings to build a mixed-use, transit-oriented intensification delivering nearly 2,000 dwelling units including affordable housing, and a new grocery store adjacent to GO rail corridor and the Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic School directly north.
The lands sit at the edges of the Junction Triangle, West Bend, and Roncesvalles neighbourhoods, but are disconnected from them. They are anchored by a Loblaws and other low-lying retail/commercial, surrounded by a large swath of parking. There is little porosity through the site: no streets connect to the residential neighbourhood to the south; the TCDSB site effectively blocks access to and from Bloor; and, the GO rail corridor prevents east-west movement.
Development activity in the West End in recent years has seen 1.5Mm² built and proposed: primarily mid-rise, and a dozen high-rises (15-47 storeys).
The 2280 Dundas Street West lands are located along key transit corridors that connect Toronto’s downtown to Barrie, Pearson Airport, and Kitchener-Waterloo. “Bloor/Dundas is one of the most transit-accessible intersections behind Union Station, with the subway, the GO, UP Express, streetcar, and bus,” Alexis Johansen, Manager, Planning & Development at Choice, told us. “Our site presents a transformative opportunity where we can deliver a well-connected community with diverse housing, vibrant retail, a sparkling new grocery store, and a series of parks and open spaces that enhance the pedestrian experience. Moreover, our proposal illustrates a thoughtful skyline with tower heights peaking by transit lines and tapering down as you move towards existing low-rise neighbourhoods.” Choice has publicly committed to building a new grocery store in their first phase of development, all while maintaining access and operation of the existing store during construction.
In 2018, Choice submitted an OPA application to redevelop the site, which at the time conceptually included the existing school site. Since then, the developer and the school boards have attempted to reach an agreement regarding the sale of the school lands. Negotiations are ongoing. In order to move the project forward, this month Choice submitted ZBA & DPOS applications that no longer include the school lands, nor a rebuilt new school within the development. Also, and related, a once-proposed transit concourse below grade connecting the Bloor GO and Dundas West TTC stations is not part of the current application.
Led by Hariri Pontarini Architects with Urban Strategies Inc., the new design divides the broad site into six blocks, four of which include new buildings (the “development blocks”), across three zones. Seven mixed-use and residential buildings, including five residential towers ranging from 10 through 38 storeys, offer both ownership and rental housing options. The proposed development includes 135,274m² (89%) of residential GFA, 9,025m² (6%) of retail, and 7,596m² (5%) of office, and provides 18% park and open space site coverage, for a site density of 3.46 FSI. The breakdown of the North, Centre and South zones are illustrated below:
North Zone (945 res units)
- Building 1: two residential towers of 22 and 32 storeys, situated atop an 8-storey base building
- Building 2: 6-storey base building and a residential tower of 38 storeys.
Centre Zone (543 res units)
- Building 3: retail at grade and grocery store on 2nd storey; office uses on levels 3 to 6; 24-storey tower
- Building 4: single residential building with a six-storey base building and a 28-storey tower.
South Zone: (387 res units)
- Building 5: 10-storey residential building fronting on Dundas St W, with retail at grade
- Buildings 6 & 7: 6- and 8-storey residential buildings, fronting onto the public park
- Features two open spaces—the Ritchie Garden and Railway Walk.
“The project brings together the complicated mixed-use program and city dynamics associated with a higher-order transit hub, while providing a calm organization of buildings around a sensitively designed public realm and central park.” said Michael Conway, Associate Partner, Hariri Pontarini Architects.
At the heart of the site is a 4,400m² public park — the Community Green — which is connected to a broader network of open spaces varying in size and shape, facilitating pedestrian movement throughout the site.
"Our open space strategy is focused on the creation of a generously scaled centralized civic green which is surrounded by a constellation of intimately scaled community parks that together act as the connective tissue that not only ties the development together but creates a connection between people in the neighbourhood" said Jennifer Nagai, Landscape Architect and Partner at PFS Studio.
The South Garden Walk, for example, which runs along the southern boundary of the lands, creates inviting new public 'breathing space' while also helping to buffer the development from the neighbourhood to the south. A new u-shaped public street system connected to Dundas Street improves mobility within and through the site, providing a vehicular connection at Ritchie Avenue and a pedestrian connection at Herman Avenue.
The massing responds to and transitions in scale to the surrounding context. Featuring a defined base building, middle (floor-plates of 750m² GFA), and a defined top, the towers also alternate between N-S and E-W orientations. Their staggered heights provide varied skyline conditions and a descent in scale from the northeast corner of the site (at rail corridor) down toward Dundas St W and the low-rise neighbourhood to the south.
The master plan reflects a significant effort to enhance the public realm and pedestrian experience. Base buildings with retail and restaurant spaces give life to the street along the existing city fabric of Dundas St W (as well as the new internal public streets). Varied sidewalk widths and building setbacks… “creates a prominent, pedestrian-focused north-south spine, and allows for entrance forecourts into the retail, commercial and office entrance lobbies.” Across the site, rows of trees provide a continuous canopy, and where possible, additional trees create a grove-like condition with seating.
“This is a robust, evolving master plan. We are maintaining our relationship with the school boards and continue to discuss their future involvement with the redevelopment,” says Johansen. “Our block structure works in such a way that we can accommodate a school on our land in the future.”
Compared to the previous, Johansen notes that this submission is more focused on the architecture. For one, the buildings have a higher wall to window ratio, using more brick and other heavy and opaque materials. “We are committed to doing less of that ‘glass box in the sky’ look, which not only helps with our sustainability targets, but is in keeping with the Roncy flavour of the neighbourhood that we're trying to bring up to the intersection. A benefit of this new 2022 submission compared to the 2018 application is we were able to push ourselves in terms of sustainability, architecture and urban design,” says Johansen.
The proposed development contributes 1,923 new dwelling units in the following mix: 75 studios (4%), 1,085 one-bedroom (57%), 444 two-bedroom (23%) and 289 three-bedroom (15%). Three levels of underground parking will accommodate 655 motor vehicles (includes residents, visitors, retail & office), along with spaces for 2,243 bicycles.
We will continue to follow progress on the development, but in the meantime, you can learn more about it from our Database file, linked below. 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.
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| Related Companies: | Counterpoint Engineering, Hariri Pontarini Architects, Urban Strategies Inc. |
