AlbertC

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Some more small scale, drop in the bucket missing middle development. Nice to see it on Symington though. Not necessarily a primary main street, it's still a bus route and should be seeing more gradual intensification however possible.



211 SYMINGTON AVE
Ward 9: Davenport

To construct a three-storey triplex with a rear basement walkout, a rear exterior staircase and a rooftop patio. Also, to construct a two-storey ancillary building (two-car garage with a laneway suite above) in the rear yard of the property, abutting the laneway.


syming.JPG
syming2.JPG



Replaces this worn out looking old house in the middle here:


syming3.JPG
 
Great location for some intensification, extremely well served by transit with Bloor and future Lansdowne GO both within walking distance. Interesting outdoor stair thing they have going on at the back! I wonder whether that's the primary access to the upper floor units?
 
Great location for some intensification, extremely well served by transit with Bloor and future Lansdowne GO both within walking distance. Interesting outdoor stair thing they have going on at the back! I wonder whether that's the primary access to the upper floor units?

I think those outdoor stairs are for secondary access or fire escape purposes. Based on the plans document, there's still a stairwell within the building that goes all the way to the top level.
 
Great to see! This is very near me and I welcome this development immensely. Unfortunately there are some great bones of old storefronts nearby at Symington and Antler and also down at Wallace that have been turned into residential and lost to us as a result. A lot of what makes this area great is the mixture of housing types and mixed uses all together (the commercial strip along Wallace and the new commercial building by the Railpath are really unique kinds of pockets for Toronto's usual topology and give a lot of life and convenience to the area), and hopefully we can continue to see some more residential intensification around here, and a return to some mixed use as well in time. IMO the Junction Triangle should try to proactively grow in the unique urban way it has already shown it can very successfully be.
 
Retail on Symington has continued to dwindle during the last 14 years that I've live here. I wish that some of it could come back.

Arduino's grocery/variety at Symington and Ernest was a long-time anchor on that corner. Sad when they retired/closed/moved....they were really nice people there too. The new owners took a stab at continuing with a convenience store, but it just didn't stock much and eventually closed. Residential there now.

On the north side of Symington and Ernest, it was a chiropractor. Now residential.

Across from those two, it Neves Variety was another long-time convenience store. It was an adventure going in there....piled high, like a hoarder's shop. They closed in the last year or so, and a few months ago the building had a fire. I doubt it will ever re-open as a convenience store or other retail.

At Wallace Ave., the south-east corner that has the recently-renovated building had a short run as a cafe about 10 years ago. The owners there are really nice people, but I don't think they had much experience with running a cafe. Now the whole building is residential again.

Wallace Market is still there, and seemingly doing OK. Every other corner at Wallace used to be commercial in the past too..... but other than the cafe, that was before my time.

North-west corner of Symington and Antler is obviously formerly commercial. I wonder what was there....should look into it sometime. Residential now, and recently they've been doing some re-greening which has been a welcome change.

There's still plenty of retail around, but it seems that most of it has pushed away from Symington. Maybe more people/density will bring some back? As much as I missed Arduino's (and never really went to Neves) there has always been a plethora of other corner stores around.

Anyway...this building.... Cool. Three units in the main building plus laneway suite. Four units total, without really changing how the street looks. Need more of this.
 
Retail on Symington has continued to dwindle during the last 14 years that I've live here. I wish that some of it could come back.

Arduino's grocery/variety at Symington and Ernest was a long-time anchor on that corner. Sad when they retired/closed/moved....they were really nice people there too. The new owners took a stab at continuing with a convenience store, but it just didn't stock much and eventually closed. Residential there now.

On the north side of Symington and Ernest, it was a chiropractor. Now residential.

Across from those two, it Neves Variety was another long-time convenience store. It was an adventure going in there....piled high, like a hoarder's shop. They closed in the last year or so, and a few months ago the building had a fire. I doubt it will ever re-open as a convenience store or other retail.

At Wallace Ave., the south-east corner that has the recently-renovated building had a short run as a cafe about 10 years ago. The owners there are really nice people, but I don't think they had much experience with running a cafe. Now the whole building is residential again.

Wallace Market is still there, and seemingly doing OK. Every other corner at Wallace used to be commercial in the past too..... but other than the cafe, that was before my time.

North-west corner of Symington and Antler is obviously formerly commercial. I wonder what was there....should look into it sometime. Residential now, and recently they've been doing some re-greening which has been a welcome change.

There's still plenty of retail around, but it seems that most of it has pushed away from Symington. Maybe more people/density will bring some back? As much as I missed Arduino's (and never really went to Neves) there has always been a plethora of other corner stores around.

Anyway...this building.... Cool. Three units in the main building plus laneway suite. Four units total, without really changing how the street looks. Need more of this.

The retail spaces over at the Lansdowne & Wallace intersection have held resilient in the past decade or so and even seem to have gotten better recently. Donna's has become a pretty popular restaurant, and several of the other retailers have been staying steadily. For the most part, the immediate density levels are similar between Lansdowne and Symington.

I find that contraction of retail spaces along Symington appears to have coincided with the transition period among the area. As some of the older population have moved out, while newer residents have either adapted the residual retail units to residential, or shifted the retail scene to Dupont instead. There is a newer critical mass of residents that have moved in within the townhome communities along Wallace west of Perth. They have shown that there's a reasonable amount of demand for retail as some new shops have opened up along the Wallace Walk retail block that runs along the railpath.
 
Just looking at the architectural plans, first time I've seen this? I wonder how it works:
View attachment 363346

Maybe something similar to this concept (?).

 
Maybe more people/density will bring some back?

I'm not sure about the zoning and if they will be allowed to flip back to commercial purposes or if these spaces were grandfathered commercial uses in yellowbelt previously and now that they're residential the ratchet of zoning policy will keep them that way. I'll have to look it up...
 

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