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Northern Light

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This site is currently a strip plaza fronting Eglinton on the south side, from Lebovic to Warden.

The owners have been lobbying the City on this site as part of the Golden Mile Master Plan process.

At the June meeting of Council, a settlement was adopted in respect of the OPA for this site, which is now public.


Of interest, there clearly is not, as yet, a cohesive development concept for the site; notwithstanding that, there are some details of note in the settlement:

@HousingNowTO

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Interesting. This opens the door for residential uses on the south side of Eglinton. Surprised meeting IZ policies is all it took.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Interesting. This opens the door for residential uses on the south side of Eglinton. Surprised meeting IZ policies is all it took.
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Residential was already proposed/coming to Eglinton Square, and to the piping plant side on the east side of Pharmacy. But I think that's as far east as the official applications have gone. (on the south side)
 
Northern Light said:
Residential was already proposed/coming to Eglinton Square, and to the piping plant side on the east side of Pharmacy. But I think that's as far east as the official applications have gone. (on the south side)
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yes, but that is because Eglinton Square has an existing Mixed Use designation and the property on the east side of Pharmacy had a pre-existing approval which pre-dated the Golden Mile Secondary Plan permitting the conversion, IIRC.

This is the first employment designated block on the south side to recieve a conversion for residential uses, as far as I can tell. The Secondary Plan envisioned retaining solely employment uses on the south side of the street, with a series of mid-rise office buildings (lol) shown along Eglinton in the massing images the City prepared.
 
Much of the block bounded by Eglinton, Pharmacy, Comstock and Warden is basic big box retail, car dealers and associated parking lots. These establishments being zoned employment never made much sense to me.
 
Undead said:
Much of the block bounded by Eglinton, Pharmacy, Comstock and Warden is basic big box retail, car dealers and associated parking lots. These establishments being zoned employment never made much sense to me.
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Possibly a mere holdover over the area's more industrial past, pre-big box.
 
Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. But it should have been changed the moment the LRT was under construction.
 
innsertnamehere said:
yes, but that is because Eglinton Square has an existing Mixed Use designation and the property on the east side of Pharmacy had a pre-existing approval which pre-dated the Golden Mile Secondary Plan permitting the conversion, IIRC.

This is the first employment designated block on the south side to recieve a conversion for residential uses, as far as I can tell. The Secondary Plan envisioned retaining solely employment uses on the south side of the street, with a series of mid-rise office buildings (lol) shown along Eglinton in the massing images the City prepared.
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Curious why the lol, there actually are a couple midrise office buildings in the general area already; Avila, Scotiabank over on Birchmount, 1940 Eglinton. I see value in building on that by bringing more employment to the area, along with residential development.
 
egotrippin said:
Curious why the lol, there actually are a couple midrise office buildings in the general area already; Avila, Scotiabank over on Birchmount, 1940 Eglinton. I see value in building on that by bringing more employment to the area, along with residential development.
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the office market up here is, well, lol. The existing buildinfs struggle to hold on to tenants at low rents, there isn't really demand for new construction office space. The current Scarborough office vacancy rate is 11.5%, among the highest in the 416.
 
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Employers already had a hard time getting people to come work up there pre-pandemic. I would imagine it's an even harder sell now.
 
New office isn't even accretive at Yonge and Eglinton - as in, you can't cover construction costs with the going area rents. The Toronto office market is remarkably downtown-focused, despite Planning's love for the 'Centres' policies which haven't seen a balance of residential and commercial development. There's a reason Oxford isn't doing any more office than they absolutely need to at Canada Square: it just doesn't make any money.
 
Well then, fair enough. Thank you all for the explanations. In theory it's a nice idea, but I guess that's just it; a nice idea.
 
Unless Toronto scraps or alters the IMIT program (which i've been banging on wood for), corporations will have very little incentive to locate their offices outside of the downtown core. They'll just keep exploiting a misguided policy.
 
Amare said:
Unless Toronto scraps or alters the IMIT program (which i've been banging on wood for), corporations will have very little incentive to locate their offices outside of the downtown core. They'll just keep exploiting a misguided policy.
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Eh even if there was an incentive to locate offices throughout the city, it's a really hard sell to potential employees. Offices located downtown are accessible to employees all over the GTHA, and if employers want workers back in the office they need to make it as easy and appealing as possible - an office that you have to take TTC to after landing at union from a GO trip will turn off a lot of potential talent.

I know a lot of people who have just not bothered to apply for roles they're interested in or qualified for due to the offices being difficult to access via transit.

Sure, developers can build office space, but as Project End stated, it will always be harder to lease and will go for way less than space in the core - there are numerous companies who just won't bother. It doesn't mean there isn't a need for some office space out in the fringes, but realistically it's not going to attract huge companies the way it did in years past.
 
egotrippin said:
Curious why the lol, there actually are a couple midrise office buildings in the general area already; Avila, Scotiabank over on Birchmount, 1940 Eglinton. I see value in building on that by bringing more employment to the area, along with residential development.
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Scotia is maintaining its large campus; but it's important to note that there is a lot of sunk $$ there; notwithstanding that, SB offers employee shuttles to the GO Stn/Kennedy that leave pretty much all day, frequently, as well as a dedicated shuttle down to Scotia Plaza as well.

Put another way, it wouldn't get built there from scratch.

***

Aviva has left the area, they relocated to 'Downtown Markham'.
 
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