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As Toronto gradually toughens requirements for new buildings through the City's increasingly tough Green Standards, some developers are responding by prioritizing sustainability and environmental responsibility in their designs. In Leslieville, a currently under-utilized site at 1291 Gerrard Street East is an opportunity for such. On the owner's behalf, Percy Ellis has submitted Zoning By-law Amendment and Site Plan Approval applications for a sustainable purpose-built rental housing development.
Owned by Gerrard Greenwood South East Holdings Inc., the site is an assembly of 1291 through 1311 Gerrard Street East and 243 to 247 Greenwood Avenue, and straddles the southeast corner of those two streets. The site’s irregular shape faces fronts Gerrard with 74.3m of frontage, 18.8m on Greenwood, and is about 3,246m² in area. It currently consists of low-rise commercial and residential units.
The proposal calls for a mixed-use building standing 9 storeys at 29.27m. Its mass timber frame would significantly reduce the non-renewables used for construction. There would be 289 new residential units, including 24 rental replacement units. With three elevators included in the design, this would result in the building being comfortably within the 1 elevator per 100 unit threshold at 96.3 units per elevator.
The application highlights the initiative to create a purpose-built rental building. The owner is looking at the possibility of having about 30% of the total units be affordable housing. This is being explored through the City’s Open Door Program and Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation’s Rental Construction Financing Initiative.
Gabriel Fain Architects Inc have designed the building to include an 8-storey element along Gerrard Street East with a ninth floor significantly stepped-back, and a 9-storey element along Greenwood Avenue. Step-backs and varying cladding treatments would articulate the exteriors. Eight retail spaces would front Gerrard, and three would front Greenwood, for a total of 1,725m² of retail gross floor area (GFA) compared to the 16,605m² of residential GFA.
Residents would have 1,156m² of amenity space, equally divided between indoors and outdoors. The latter includes space on the ground floor and the 9th floor rooftop terrace. There would also be a public mid-block connection, accessible via the northwest corner of the Gerrard element. The proposal calls for seating, planters, and community planting areas for this public realm.
Further adhering to the sustainability and environmental goals, the design calls for only 22 vehicular parking spaces, five being for visitors. The spaces would be located in parking stackers accessed via a porte cochère off Gerrard. There would be 319 bicycle parking spots, 58 being for short-term use.
For those using public transit, the site located along the 506 Carlton streetcar route and a bus along Greenwood. Greenwood station is approximately 1.3km north of the site. Looking to the future, Ontario Line 3 is under construction, with the Carlton streetcar to have a stop at Gerrard station, about 1.1km to the west.
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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