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ferusian

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City:
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685 WARDEN AVE
Ward 20: Scarborough Southwest

Development Applications

Project description:
Construct 6 new buildings with heights ranging from 13-36-storeys, with streetrelated base elements and will contain 1,519 dwelling units 120,010 square metres of residential gross floor area, 993 square metres of non-residential gross floor area.
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This site is currently a vacant lot and is owned by Choice Properties REIT.

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Project engagement website:

685 Warden is an opportunity to transform a currently vacant lot into new residential and non-residential uses – all within walking distance to Warden Station – as well as improve the sidewalks and provide open space accessible from Warden Avenue through to the neighbouring residences to the East.
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The site has a footprint of 1.7ha or about 4 acres and change. Large'ish in many respects. Though I would not want to see a mega-block site; I'm nonetheless inclined to think the community and City would be better served if this were done with 689 together. What is not 683x to the south needs to be in on the action too in as much as Pickington street needs to be connected to Warden.

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I know Choice previously considered building a 'No Frills' on this site. The area was quite deprived of grocery after Warden Woods Mall was demolished.

The nearest supermarket 'as the crow flies' is about 900M away at Birchmount and Danforth. However, this formerly industrial stretch of land has very poor connections from Warden to Birchmount. Currently, following the local road network,
the nearest supermarket is 1.1km away.

This site, to my mind should probably still include grocery, but should also contain a new street connection reducing the travel distance to the stores at Danforth/Birchmount.

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The former GECO rail spur is the parcel immediately behind this site. It was once the City Plan to make the entire thing a linear park, and yet somehow the housing development to the west and south was allowed to build over it for reasons that baffle me.

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The beautiful Warden Woods Park is located just across Warden, but does not contain a single formal access from the east side except at the corner of Warden and St. Clair.

I think creating a formal access approximately where shown in the pic below would be an excellent community amenity which might be fundable here.

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Overall, a really good opportunity to improve not only vacant land, but an area that is low to moderate income.

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one final thought though...........and it's a biggie.

The vast majority of the site below is TCHC housing, just a couple of blocks from this property. It's a community very much in need of a re-do.

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It offers ravine views and frontage on west and north, and a school yard to the south.

I certainly seem some market potential.........perhaps choice and CreateTO could have a chat.
 
ferusian said:
Turner Flesicher Architects: 36 storeys

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Key statistics:

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Site Plan:

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Landscape site plan (DTAH):

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Thoughts:

1) Yes, its T-F.......but it doesn't look terrible at first blush; just a tad bland; but may really have something to offer this neighbourhood.

2) The proposed park space at the rear (east) of the site is the old railway corridor I mentioned (GECO spur) ; you can see in that last image how homes were allowed to encroach on that corridor in a previous development; which is irksome, as the City had long considered the corridor for a trail, but missed opportunities to acquire it whole, or in pieces as it came up.

3) I don't like that they aren't proposing to punch the street through to create a connection; though it appears one will be available to pedestrians
 
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WislaHD said:
The block context plan provides conceptual massing for the surrounding area:

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Makes the need for access for residents to Warden Woods that much clearer.

Also highlights a need to make Warden a much nicer pedestrian experience, and to secure a supermarket for this area.
 
WislaHD said:
The block context plan provides conceptual massing for the surrounding area:

View attachment 341270
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Where does the "Conceptual Massing" for the TTC Lands at WARDEN station come from...? (20 to 28 storeys).

Our volunteers had to push to even get the City to do 18-19 storeys on the HOUSING NOW site on the North Side of St.Clair.
 
HousingNowTO said:
Where does the "Conceptual Massing" for the TTC Lands at WARDEN station come from...? (20 to 28 storeys).

Our volunteers had to push to even get the City to do 18-19 storeys on the HOUSING NOW site on the North Side of St.Clair.
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Presumably from the planning consultants that Choice hired for this project.

Their job is to show how the subject site doesn't look out-of-place in the future surrounding context upon full development build-out, so they have an incentive to provide conceptual massing for other properties that may be well beyond what the City desires in height+density.

Whether they talked to the City Planners about the conceptual heights before putting this together is unknown.
 
HousingNowTO said:
Where does the "Conceptual Massing" for the TTC Lands at WARDEN station come from...? (20 to 28 storeys).

Our volunteers had to push to even get the City to do 18-19 storeys on the HOUSING NOW site on the North Side of St.Clair.
Click to expand...

WislaHD said:
Presumably from the planning consultants that Choice hired for this project.

Their job is to show how the subject site doesn't look out-of-place in the future surrounding context upon full development build-out, so they have an incentive to provide conceptual massing for other properties that may be well beyond what the City desires in height+density.

Whether they talked to the City Planners about the conceptual heights before putting this together is unknown.
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Wislaw's answer is sound.

But I would also add, in terms of the way the City plans, I can easily see the higher heights on the Station site for a number of reasons.

1) It's closest to the corner of the major intersection (the City loves heights that taper away from intersections).

2) It's closest to the subway station, it's not a bad logic really that the greatest density should be permitted closest to transit

3)The station lands are the lowest developable land (elevation wise) in the area, so any height is less conspicuous

4) The big one, less likely opposition. The Housing Now site had a low-rise neighbourhood immediately to the north, and across the tracks, and mid/low rise across Warden.
By contrast, the Station lands have the Valley/Creek to the north and west, the station building, then then the hydro corridor to the west, and industrial/commercial lands to the south. Ergo, objections are less likely.
The amount of fight one is likely to encounter is not an unimportant factor in many City decisions.
 
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WislaHD said:
The block context plan provides conceptual massing for the surrounding area:

View attachment 341270
Click to expand...
Whoever they hired for this conceptual massing should be fired for not doing their homework…
The Access Storage next door has applied to expand their facility, it will NOT be turned into condos as indicated in the massing…
Warden Station lands will not have any towers even close to what they’ve depicted here, especially fronting St Clair.
The North Lot was a struggle to get approved and is a big waste of development opportunity as it is.
 
JoshR said:
Whoever they hired for this conceptual massing should be fired for not doing their homework…Warden Station lands will not have any towers even close to what they’ve depicted here, especially fronting St Clair.
The North Lot was a struggle to get approved and is a big waste of development opportunity as it is.
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WARDEN (North Lot) was one of the very first HOUSING NOW sites, and the City (hopefully) learned a bunch of lessons from the problems that site exposed in what their "default" settings are...

CreateTO's plans for KENNEDY and BOROUGH DRIVE (STC) are both much taller than what was proposed on any of the first-round sites.
 
We have a new front page story up on this project here, including at least one new rendering and comments from a number of the movers and shakers.

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ProjectEnd said:
The rot at the City runs deep. They truly, internally, believe in 'too tall', 'too dense' bullshit. They'll never entitle the lands as they should and we'll all pay the price for it.
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It feels like everyone in charge at the city is like "well I already own a home so I don't have to care about housing affordability", so instead they obsess over the idea of picture-perfect suburban neighbourhoods at the expense of actually building housing, while having no empathy for the people who are being screwed by those decisions. It's so frustrating.
 
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