Toronto | 78 Gladstone Avenue | 10.43m | 3s | Duma & Boblak | Ambient Designs

AlbertC · Mar 14, 2022

Located at the SW corner of Gladstone & Alma Ave, a couple blocks north of Queen St W. This property that has been approved for a redevelopment opportunity of a five-plex mulit-unit residential building and rear laneway house is currently listed for sale.

Check out this listing

78 GLADSTONE AVE, Toronto, Ontario M6J3K8

www.realtor.ca

Conceptual renderings from the listing to show redevelopment potential:

View of the current building at the corner:

concrete_and_light · Mar 14, 2022

Looks like this building maybe used to have a storefront? Would be good to bring that back.

AlbertC · Mar 14, 2022

concrete_and_light said:
Looks like this building maybe used to have a storefront? Would be good to bring that back.

Seems likely to have hosted retail in the past based on the entrance format and windows at ground level. The building just across the street on the NW corner (linked below) still has a unit operating as retail. Although it looks like at it's peak, there may even have been 3 separate units along it's neighbouring properties.

It's quite common to see former retail spaces along streets like Gladstone and Dovercourt get converted to residential through the years. There's at least one other example of this on Gladstone, a couple blocks north. Possibly due to population turnovers and renewals as communities come and go. Along with the shift and demand of retail to be more concentrated to major streets like Dundas and Queen.

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junctionist · Mar 15, 2022

It's sad to see another residential side street storefront disappear. These small stores and restaurants within a neighbourhood make neighbourhoods more walkable and vibrant. They help to foster a sense of community as locals meet at the local store or restaurant. Despite the city becoming denser and more vibrant, we're still losing these storefronts at an unfortunate rate.

innsertnamehere · Mar 15, 2022

to be clear I don't believe this unit has operated as a retail unit in decades.

Historically these neighbourhoods were much denser and could support more hyper-local retail. Today's e-commerce world and lower population densities means this corner likely couldn't support 3 different storefronts even if it wanted to.

Doesn't mean the City shouldn't support local retail like this more, including by allowing it in the zoning by-law and Official Plan, but this isn't likely a case of a good retail unit getting removed.