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It’s been over a year since the multi-building Mirvish Village development was topped off, and in that time, beyond the addition of cladding, the dramatic visual changes that the project was making on the area throughout its construction process have slowed down. What hasn’t slowed down though is the finishing work that will bring this Westbank Corp and Peterson community from construction into occupancy. In the last few months, a number of the complex’s commercial tenants have officially opened, while interior work continues to prepare the residential side of the project to welcome its new tenants.
From the corner of Bathurst and Bloor Streets, the development that we are seeing is essentially in its final form, save for a few impending finishes. Small sections of cladding are still to be installed on the Bloor Street elevation, and around the majority of the site’s street frontage, construction hoarding and fencing is still in place to keep pedestrians out of the active job site. On the Bathurst Street frontage, an opening in the hoarding permits access to the first active retail unit in the development, the LCBO’s newest location, which opened in mid-April.
Further down Bathurst Street, the southeasternmost portion of the development, featuring a strip of retained and restored three-storey heritage building fronts has also seen construction wrap up and occupancy begin in recent months. The redeveloped interiors have now become a new outpost of Niagara College Toronto, providing 45,000ft² that is programmed with state-of-the-art classrooms and co-working spaces, a library, food services, campus store, and even a rooftop deck.
Meanwhile, over on the site’s western border, the Markham Street redevelopment is still under wraps as work continues to prepare the collection of detached Victorian-era homes for their new retail uses. Restaurants, stores, and a daycare will reanimate the street that was historically a key part of the Honest Ed’s experience, and a landscaped streetscape that is closed to cars will make it a pedestrian hub.
Taking a look at what is going on behind the fencing, photos shared in the UrbanToronto Forum by The Globe’s Alex Bozikovic illuminate the progress made on the highly anticipated market and public space anchoring the centre of the development. In the image below, we can see that the frame for the warehouse-style open air structure is coming together at the base of the western Bloor Street-fronting tower, where the market will soon occupy. A significant landscaping effort is still to come to turn the space into the urban park that was promised, which will likely get underway this summer.
We can also see that the long retail pedestrian thoroughfare that cuts through the eastern block of the site appears to be finished to the extent that retailers could begin setting up shop in the coming weeks. A sidewalk has been established, and the storefronts are glazed, with small cladding and landscaping details still to come in order to bring the corridor to life.
With construction work entering the final stages, the exciting new mixed-use community designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects with Henriquez Partners Architects,could begin residential occupancy as early as this summer. And if that’s not exciting enough, the team also submitted a new application to the City in late April to approve the reinstating of a refurbished ‘old sign’. For those that have been yearning to see the return of the iconic Honest Ed’s signage, the wait could finally be coming to an end.
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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