Week of January 10th
More development along Soudan and an architect emerges for the Davisville Aquatic Centre
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A blast-from-the-past development proposal at Soudan and Brownlow
The holidays was mostly a break from development news and activity in Davisville - with the exception of a few national columnists poking holes in midtown’s largest project seeking to redevelop the southwest corner Yonge & Eglinton. (Hey, some of these points look familiar! Didn’t someone write about them back in November?)
But at least one more interesting proposal did slide in just before the holidays began. And I do mean literally: the City says it was received Friday December 18th, presumably as the applicant had their first eggnog already in hand (I certainly would have).
The proposal is for the properties from 190-200 Soudan Avenue as well as the area immediately to their north. There isn’t much detail on the City’s development portal, but from the brief project description, you quickly get the idea:
Proposal for 21-storey residential building with 167 new rental units, in addition to maintaining the 185 rental units in the existing apartment building. Approximately 13,160 square metres of new residential GFA is proposed, resulting in an overall FSI of 4.5 times the area of the lot. The existing 19-storey residential rental building located on the northerly portion of the subject site, municipally known as 18 Brownlow Avenue, will be retained.
What’s interesting about this proposal aren’t the measurables but rather how we got here. At first, the properties in question were part of a larger plan in 2016 to replace the entire strip from Redpath and Brownlow along Soudan with a massive 24 storey tower. Neighbours were (understandably) unhappy and organized yard sales (amongst other things) to raise funds for their legal fight. Eventually a settlement was reached where a scaled down tower would be built only at Soudan and Redpath. It’s been under construction ever since - which you can follow here if that’s your thing.
In the meantime, what would become of 190-200 Soudan Avenue wasn’t determined - at least, not publicly - even if there really shouldn’t have been any doubt that something with higher density was coming eventually. Whether or not this is the kind of density the neighbourhood and City had in mind for the remainder of the site remains to be seen. Given this one of the last untouched parcels of land on the north side of Soudan, this will be another interesting project to follow.
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If you’re a housing and development geek, here are few other upcoming opportunities to wade into some into consultations for projects in our area:
January 14th - a small, 4 storey residential building on Roehampton (register)
January 20th - a large, 35 storey rental tower at Balliol and Pailton (register)
January 27th - the massive redevelopment at Yonge & Davisville (register)
In addition, there are also a few community council meetings coming up where local councillors will debate projects like 733 Mount Pleasant. Note that you have to register and reserve a speaking slot at those.
An architect emerges for the new Davisville Aquatic Community Centre
On Wednesday, Toronto’s “Bid Award Panel” meets for the first time in 2021 to review and approve a host of new City contracts. Part of the truly thrilling agenda already filled with sewage pumps and watermain repairs will be at least one item that’s of interest to those of us who aren’t nerdy civil engineers: the selection of an architect for the new Davisville Aquatic Community Recreation Centre.
The Centre will be at the southwest corner of the redeveloped Davisville Junior Public School site. It will have different pool facilities for a variety of ages / uses as well as some community space for other programming. All of this is great news given the lack of such space in our area and explosion of recent growth. Alas, as the Centre is not scheduled to open until 2024, it will almost certainly be overcapacity immediately.
The City says CS&P Architects are their firm and we will see if the panel agrees. The firm’s portfolio of projects is nice enough, even if it all feels a bit…safe? They’ve already left a mark in midtown, having designed North Toronto Collegiate, an improved Upper Canada College, and Yonge & Eglinton Dental.
…wait, what?
“One of these things is not like the others…”
Anyway, hopefully the City’s sizable budget for the project of $24 million allows for some creativity. There are, as it turns out, some exceptional recent examples from elsewhere across the City - like the beautiful Pam McConnell Centre in Regent Park. Fingers crossed we something equally headturning.
Latest on COVID-19 in Davisville
There’s such a deluge of COVID-19 news right now, it is hard to keep up - nevermind that the messaging has been so confusing that even the police aren’t sure what they’re enforcing anymore. Jennifer Pagliaro of the Toronto Star does as good a job of any of explaining where we’re at and what Tuesday’s policy changes announced by the province mean.
For Davisville, there are a few recent developments to watch:
Per reporting last week, there have been 28 workers on the Eglinton LRT diagnosed with COVID-19 over the past two weeks. It’s a small-ish proportion of the 1,500 people working on the project at any given time, but still a major health and safety concern - nevermind that it represents yet another potential threat to its already much-delayed timetable
The City of Toronto started to publish names of workplaces with persistent or dangerous COVID-19 outbreaks. Only one is currently named on the City’s website: Sofina Foods, a food processor based mostly in the Northern edges of the city. Still, minor outbreaks continue to crop-up at business locations in midtown - including a recent case at the Loblaws at Eglinton and Lillian.
The COVID-19 outbreak at the Roehampton Shelter has grown to 15 people - representing almost 10% of residents. This is very concerning, particularly as new provincial shelter in-place restrictions will likely put more pressure on residents to stay inside the facility during the day (though the regulations aren’t exactly clear on whether exceptions will be made). I suspect this will be a major topic of discussion at the shelter’s community engagement meeting scheduled for Wednesday.
Stay tuned for more - and, as always, stay safe.