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Toronto's relentless growth and transformation is forcing a new era of urban planning where are previously not planned for housing are now being considered for it. An example can be found in an industrial area of Scarborough where a developer, the Sunray Group, is aiming to create complete, self-sustaining community at 22 Metropolitan Road. Situated to the southeast of the Warden Avenue and Highway 401 interchange, the surrounding blocks are characterized by commercial and light industrial space, and one of the lower population densities in Scarborough. Here, the develop and their teams argues this proposal presents an opportunity to introduce a comprehensive community to this part of the city.
Tthe site, which includes the parcels at 20 and 22 Metropolitan Road, forms an irregular shape backing onto the Highway 401/Warden Avenue interchange. The total site area is approximately 34,649m². Currently, 20 Metropolitan Road is vacant, while the other parcel houses a 200-room, 2-story brick motel dating back to the early 1980s.
This motel has been acting as a makeshift community, providing temporary housing for residents of Strachan House, a transitional housing facility for people who have experienced homelessness, which is currently under redevelopment.
The proposed community would feature 5 mid- and high-rise development blocks. A large public space would run north-south across the site with a park, along with a new public street. ZO1 have designed 5 towers ranging from 23 to 48 storeys, or 92.16m to 157.55m, along with a 12-storey mid-rise standing 45.75m.
The tallest towers would be found closest to Highway 401, with the buildings decreasing in height going southwards. A public park of about 3,300m² in area at the south end of the site and a centralized POPS (Privately-Owned Publicly accessible Space) of about 954m² are intended as ways to bring a sense of community to the proposed developmentment.
With 167,616m² of gross floor area (GFA), this would include 5,447.45m² of retail and office use, and 15,302m² of hotel space. The hotel and office would reside in one of five development blocks in the southwest corner, north of the public park. Along with the 204 hotel suites, the community would bring 2,048 residential units across the four residential buildings.
The proposal takes into consideration future developments surrounding the site, having its new road end at the east edge of the site so that it could be extended into future redevelopments by abutting property owners.
The plans include 5 elevators each for the taller towers and 2 for the mid-rise, meaning that each tower would all be well-serviced and either below or close to the 1 elevator per 100 suite threshold.
Block 2 would be a seniors residence with retail space, with housing options with varying levels of care for seniors. Block 3 is set to include retail and rental units, with condominiums in the remaining blocks. The building designs feature podiums ranging from 2 to 8-storey podiums. The buildings would each have indoor amenity spaces, along with the adjoining outdoor amenities. In total, there would be 15,160m² of amenity space, of which 5,588m² is set to be outdoors.
There would be 1,297 vehicular parking spaces across the two levels of underground garage and above-ground parking. Of that, 953 would be for residents, with spaces allocated to visitors, hotel, and retail use. There would also be 1,289 bicycle parking spots, of which 137 would be for short-term use.
The centre of the site is about a 400m/5 minute walk from the Warden 68 TTC bus stops at Metropolitan Road. The Warden bus is not one of the TTC's 10-minute or better routes. Other local transit services can be found at greater distances.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow progress on this 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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