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When one hears about the Toronto housing crisis, one imagines the average person having a hard time finding a place to live here. The crisis extends to people caught in special circumstances, though too. Elisa House, operated by the Society of St Vincent de Paul, has served Etobicoke since 2001, offering transitional housing and a women’s emergency shelter, and Toronto is also facing a pressing need for more of these support systems. Now, Elisa House is set to be replaced and expanded as part of the development application for 21 - 25 Windsor Street.
Developer Diamante Development has submitted applications for Official Plan Amendment and Zoning By-law Amendment for the site within walking distance of Mimico GO station. The site, which is about 10,880m² in area, is generally located east of Royal York Avenue and about 550m south of the Gardiner Expressway. It is bounded by Portland Street to the north, Buckingham Street to the east, Newcastle Street to the south, Windsor Street to the west, and as per the image below, its irregular shape does not include every property on the block. While the City of Toronto refers to the assembly as 21 - 25 Windsor, the site actually consists of properties addressed to 21 through 31 Windsor Street, 18 Buckingham Street, 93 Portland Street, and 60 Newcastle Street.
Daimante's project would replace the site’s existing low-rise light industrial and commercial buildings with a transit-oriented mixed-use development.
The tallest proposed building includes two towers rising to 32 and 48 storeys, or 106m and 154m, sprouting from an 8-storey podium, while a 12-storey mid-rise building also is proposed along with a smaller 7-storey mid-rise building standing 28.5m high.
The designs by Arcadis — the Amsterdam-based global firm that acquired Toronto-based IBI Group in Fall 2022 — include 978 units for the two tallest towers and 120 units for the larger mid-rise. While the mid-rises would be well-serviced with two elevators each, the tallest tower is set to be allocated four elevators and the second-tallest would have three. This results in about 140 units per elevator, significantly above the 1 elevator per 100 unit threshold, indicating longer wait times for elevators.
The podium connecting the high-rises would feature retail uses at grade, located along Newcastle Street and Windsor Street. The taller mid-rise, proposed facing Buckingham Street, would contain office uses in the first 3 storeys and residential uses in the remaining storeys. The shorter mid-rise building facing Portland Street would contain Elisa House's new transitional housing facility. Currently, Elisa House accommodates 40 women in 8 large rooms with multiple beds, while the replacement facility is proposed to contain 100 single-bed rooms as well as a variety of amenities and shared-use spaces.
The development would contain a total of approximately 65,627m² of residential Gross Floor Area (GFA), along with 1,103m² of retail GFA, 2,466m² of office GFA, and 4,973m² allocated to Elisa House. A total of 55 residential units are also proposed as affordable ownership housing units.
Residents would have access to 2,885m² of indoor and 1,622m² of outdoor amenity areas, located in the podium and on the podium roof. The public realm would be expanded with a park in the northwest corner of the site about 1,223m² in area, along with a mid-block section for vehicular and pedestrian movement.
Parking would primarily be found in two underground parking garages for the high-rises and mid-rise. The design includes 308 residential parking spaces, with 87 for visitors and non-residents. The plan also calls for 877 bicycle parking spots, with 114 for short-term use. The site, located approximately a 140m walk north of Mimico GO station, is also within 350m of bus stops on various TTC routes.
The proposal notes ample other development activity surrounding Mimico GO, including the multi-phase site Grand Park Village less than 400m northeast of the station, and the four towers proposed at 39 Newcastle on the south side of Newcastle Street.
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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| Related Companies: | Arcadis, Urban Strategies Inc. |
