Northern Light

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This is a massive application for lands near the proposed GO Station at St. Clair Avenue West/Weston Rd, new to the AIC.

It is for 7 buildings, and 1,818 Units.

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Link: http://app.toronto.ca/AIC/index.do?folderRsn=lL917KhyCNzOkpjBViEQjg==

It includes the following addresses:

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Below is an aerial pic of 116 Turnburry + 119-125 Benny Stark


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Separately, here are 144, 160 and 200 Benny Stark Street:

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I did the above separately to clearly show the existing public street (lands are on both sides of Benny Stark. But here they are together:

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All together this is ~ 4.6ha/ 11.5 ac of land.

Current site, streetview:

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Pretty much everything you can see here, on both sides of the street, right to the end of the street.
 
This is absolutely massive my goodness! The scale of this is mind numbing.

Now, factor in that there are other sites in play just to the south here:




Taken together........massive becomes...........humongous?
 
You know, this Tod guy is pretty good at building condos.

@Northern Light ~3700-4000 units between those projects. Edit: totting up these proposals and all other potentially developable land in this area yields 120-130 acres. Assuming an average tower here will have 30 floors (300 units) and 60% lot coverage, that's potentially well over 20,000 units possible.
 
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I was telling my wife a couple of months ago that based on early-stage proposals, this node near the Stockyards would become a condoville on par with Liberty Village in 10 -15 years, and I am more convinced of that as time goes on.

I don't think it is impossible for the area to handle it, but all of the transportation improvements on the table need to be implemented, plus a few more. I think we need to see the following, ASAP:

- The St. Clair GO / Smarttrack station (it goes without saying that this area will not be viable as a high density node without frequent two-way all-day higher-order transit service)
- The Union Street / Davenport connection
- The Gunn Road to Union Street bridge
- A connection from Union Street up to Keele/Rogers
- Improved cycling & pedestrian connections between St. Clair and Dundas Street. If this requires removing lanes from Keele through the rail bottleneck, then so be it
- Streetscape improvements to create pedestrian-friendly environments, especially along Weston, St. Clair and Keele.

I also think what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and there will be more massive proposals for the big box retail and industrial uses south of St. Clair and west of Keele, all the way to Runnymede (and possibly beyond). The more of this that gets slated for redevelopment, the more I think we also need to see an extension of the St. Clair streetcar, either west to Runnymede and then south to Runnymede Station, or west to Jane Street.
 
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I was telling my wife a couple of months ago that based on early-stage proposals, this node near the Stockyards would become a condoville on par with Liberty Village in 10 -15 years, and I am more convinced of that as time goes on.

I don't think it is impossible for the area to handle it, but all of the transportation improvements on the table need to be implemented, plus a few more. I think we need to see the following, ASAP:

- The St. Clair GO / Smarttrack station (it goes without saying that this area will not be viable as a high density node without frequent two-way all-day higher-order transit service)
- The Union Street / Davenport connection
- The Gunn Road to Union Street bridge
- A connection from Union Street up to Keele/Rogers
- Improved cycling & pedestrian connections between St. Clair and Dundas Street. If this requires removing lanes from Keele through the rail bottleneck, then so be it
- Streetscape improvements to create pedestrian-friendly environments, especially along Weston, St. Clair and Keele.

I also think what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and there will be more massive proposals for the big box retail and industrial uses south of St. Clair and west of Keele, all the way to Runnymede (and possibly beyond). The more of this that gets slated for redevelopment, the more I think we also need to see an extension of the St. Clair streetcar, either west to Runnymede and then south to Runnymede Station, or west to Jane Street.
I couldnt agree more with everything you just said. It's imperative we get all of the above infrastructure improvements at the minimum.

The city has had Liberty Village and Humber Bay Shores to learn its planning mistakes and screw ups from, there's absolutely no reason for screwing up yet another neighbourhood. We need to see the expanded road network come to fruition, as well as the transit and streetscape improvements as well. It's not one or the other, it's all of them and they all need to be put in place in unison.

If they find a way to screw up yet another neighbourhood, we might as well just outsource our politicians power over developments over to some private company who know what they're doing. I wont even get into the potential LPAT issues here.
 
This property is massive. Because of fences, gates and structures, you cannot actually see deep into the property and the rows of cars within.

Taken yesterday:

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Being on this street (Benny Stark) almost felt like trespassing as every building was owned by the same company. They seem to be really leaning into the fact that the name is evocative of Iron Man, with this logo plastered everywhere:

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Until and unless the transportation links are vastly improved, as @Ottawan suggests, this is going to be a mess. The development sites are hemmed in by a neighbourhood of 90s SFH that is quite dense and very car-heavy. And there's not a lot in walking distance ATM.

This area is going to need block and street planning that is aggressively anti-car. And new... everything... in the public realm.
 
That townhouse subdivision along Weston Road on the other side of the tracks is beginning to look like a massively missed intensification opportunity given everything else being proposed in the Stockyards area.
 
I would love as an early Christmas present if @Koops65 were to model up all the high density proposals in the Keele-St. Clair pocket. The bingo hall, Limen, Diamondcorp, the TOD site, this site and so on. It is another Mimico-Judson situation but triple the density.
 

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