1. New Toronto Main Street Listings….nearly 1000 of them! Catherine Nasmith
Ethel Store, 1781 Danforth Avenue, owned by Dave and Shauntelle LeBlanc is one of the properties proposed for listing, photo Globe and Mail
The first stage of Toronto’s City-wide heritage survey emerged this week with a set of multiple listings for close to 1000 properties located along several Toronto main streets, all going forward to one meeting of the Toronto Preservation Board and Council. It’s an amazing change of pace from a department that has been, and continues to be, backlogged. The change has some people worried. But here’s the thing.
This set of listings represents a streamlined process, and just as important, is the first step towards re-thinking how Toronto has been treating its main streets.
This multiple listing process has been five years in the making. Following the overnight demolition of Stollery’s at Yonge and Bloor in 2015 and the subsequent community reaction, Council asked heritage planning staff to embark on surveying the whole city, a pretty big territory, as quickly as possible.
The public outcry over the loss of Stollery's led to the call for a City Wide Survey
That process has been moving ahead, and this first group of properties is the vanguard of this larger approach, setting general contextual criteria and indicating properties in an area that meet those criteria. These properties have been identified in consultation with the local communities, through Heritage Planning staff participation in planning studies for these streets, Danforth Avenue (Coxwell to Victoria Park), Ossington Avenue, Dundas Street West and Ronscesvalles, Spadina Road (Forest Hill Village) and King-Parliament.
In the listing process, each property, described by just an address, meets the requirements for registration on the Inventory of Heritage Property as “listed” properties. Listing does not impose any kind of restriction on the property owner save for a requirement to give 60 day notice before demolition. Should the property be part of a planning application, a Heritage Impact Assessment will determine whether it should be protected through designation and how much of the building is kept.
This multiple addition process is a circling back to the origins of listing in the 1970’s, while John Sewell was Mayor. Designation was, and is, too long a process to be the only way to protect heritage properties. Listing was developed as an administrative short-cut to quickly identify potential heritage value and prevent demolition until such time as the property could be fully researched and evaluated. In recent years the City has done detailed reports for each listing, far more than is legally required. The benefit of the detailed approach is that if a property is threatened it is a simple matter to move forward a well-researched property for designation. The downside is the time required to do the evaluation has created a massive backlog of potential listings, leaving much of value, like Stollery’s, off the inventory.
Some of these buildings clearly have more architectural merit than others, but that is not the aspect I am most interested in. These listings could be the first step in protecting one of Toronto’s most important distinctions, our miles and miles of mixed commercial/residential main streets; streets that are generally subdivided into fine grained frontages of 20-40 feet, with a variety of owners, home to all manner of diverse, independent, small businesses, cultural enterprises with people living or working above. These listings might buy us some time to have a serious conversation about what is being lost in our current intensification process as it marches up and down our main streets like a drunken sailor, smashing everything in sight.
In heritage parlance, we need to protect the contextual or associated value of the historic pattern of use that these buildings support and which is shared across properties. Once gone, these buildings cannot be recreated because of current building codes and rules about land subdivision.
In the name of creating more housing downtown, an important quest for sure, we are rapidly exterminating much of what makes being in the city worthwhile. Catch 22 anyone? In this current listing process I am not sure that anyone is actually talking about the full cultural value of main street properties to the quality of life in Toronto, or what is actually lost when they are assembled and razed, irrespective of façade fragments that might be incorporated into an “urban taxidermists” token homage to what was once a living breathing vibrant place.
The problem with the way Toronto’s main streets have been redeveloping, is that what was once several shops, becomes one, maybe two, which run parallel, not perpendicular, to the street, but with perfectly restored facades. Often the windows end up filled with the back of display shelves, and the rest of the ground floor filled with elevators, escape stairs, parking ramp access, garbage rooms and so on. If there is a larger retail space, only chain retail can afford it.
Redevelopment in a neighbourhood increases surrounding property values and property taxes with them, making it much harder for tenants to afford their rents. Even those businesses who own their properties can be forced out by rising property taxes.
Is this what we want? Can we add housing in other parts of the city where less of value is at stake? What about the “missing middle”? What about the acres of parking lots all across the suburbs? What about the miles and miles of major arterials that are dotted with bungalows?
Yonge Street, the spine of Toronto has been completely ruined. While one might enjoy the architect’s hand in some of the retained facades, in my mind how these properties work together is much more significant than the role of any single property.
Urban Taxidermy in progress 2020 at Yonge and Gerrard, photo Catherine Nasmith
Main Street properties support new and long-established businesses, some in the owner’s premises, some rented, some are new buildings, some old. These buildings are where creative new ideas take hold as new businesses, or where a family member might continue the business founded by their grandparents. Change on these streets has historically been incremental, one small property at a time and different times.
A main street is far more than just retail and housing. Main streets are like old growth forests, they display species diversity, they support a rich variety of interdependent activities, the mature die off and are replaced by new a little at a time leaving the forest whole. It’s a continuing life cycle. If clear cut, replanting with a monoculture cannot replace what is lost. No matter whether the facades mimic main street, what lurks behind is just not the same.
Williams Shoe Store on Queen Street West, second generation business, photo Catherine Nasmith
For me, the worst possible outcome of this big step forward, would be re-development as usual, where the result is more urban taxidermy. This multiple listing must be seen as the first step in the City recognizing the value of its main streets and beginning a process that leads to conservation of what we have as well as new ways to supply small, owner occupied, affordable places for business in redevelopment. Finding better answers will take the imagination of many departments and the public.
2. Globe and Mail: Goodbye Skydome Andrew Willis
Rogers Centre faces demolition as Blue Jays owner plans new stadium
from Globe and Mail, Toronto Skydome
he owner of the Toronto Blue Jays wants to demolish the Rogers Centre and construct a new stadium as part of a downtown Toronto redevelopment, according to sources involved in the project.
The Globe and Mail is not naming these sources because they are not authorized to speak for their companies and the baseball team.
Rogers Communications Inc. and the real estate arm of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. are working with city, provincial and federal government officials on a plan that would effectively cut the Rogers Centre in half.
The partners would build a new, baseball-focused stadium on the foundations of the southern end of the current facility and adjacent parking lots. The northern portion of the 12.7-acre site would be turned into residential towers, office buildings, stores and public space.
Rogers is also considering building a new stadium on a lakefront site if plans for the Rogers Centre fall through. On Thursday, Rogers chief communications officer Sevaun Palvetzian said: “Prior to the pandemic, we were exploring options for the stadium but through this year our primary focus has been keeping our customers connected and employees safe, so there is no update on the Rogers Centre to share at this time.”
The Rogers Centre, with its retractable roof, opened in 1989 as SkyDome and cost $570-million, with taxpayers picking up a significant portion of the cost. Its domed roof has become an icon of the city’s skyline. Rogers acquired the stadium in 2004 for $25-million.
Editor's Note: The energy embodied in the concrete is enough reason to conserve. The skydome is the last great work of Toronto architect, Rod Robbie, built with lots of public monies. Perhaps Toronto needs to boycott Rogers.
3. Toronto Storeys: Main Street Listings Christopher Hume
Opinion: Toronto’s Heritage Board Has Stepped Up When No Else Would
Dundas West, from Toronto Storeys
The NIMBYs don’t always recognize a good thing when they see it, but in one respect they’re dead right; development in Toronto is out of control. City planners, largely reduced to finger wagging and ticking off boxes, lost the battle long ago. Local politicians support the neighbours; for provincial politicians, it’s the developers.
And so Toronto finds itself at the mercy of forces that see the city as theirs to use as they wish. The results have been mixed at best.
Given the absence of any effective oversight body or an urban champion of some sort, it’s no surprise that Toronto Heritage Preservation Services has moved in to fill the vacuum. The municipal agency ruffled the usual feathers recently when it proposed listing 966 buildings across Toronto, most of them not Gothic Revival landmarks, neo-classical monuments or even joyful mid-century modern gas stations. Instead, the list comprises hundreds of very ordinary structures, the type that normally go unnoticed, except, of course, that they don’t.
Examples of buildings along Queen St. W that the Toronto Preservation Board has designated for heritage property status
These include generic two- and three-storey brick boxes that line many main streets, retail below, residential above. They were constructed between the late 1800s and the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s and beyond. Devoid of architectural merit, most are nothing to look at. Their great virtue is their endless flexibility and their unbreakable connection to the street. One way or another, they have served generations of Torontonians. They are an economic and physical foundation of the city, able to survive upturns, downturns, cultural shifts and even gentrification.
4. Toronto Star: Toronto's Main Street Listings Francine Copin
GTA Toronto planners tap staggering 966 properties for heritage registry
Collage of properties, Image from Toronto Star
The Danforth is known for its shopping, food and drink, but few would point to the blocks between Coxwell and Victoria Park avenues as a shining example of urban architecture.
A jumble of discount stores and medical offices, food joints and bars, sprinkled with commercial plazas, it is by and large something to get through and drive by.
It’s not that the businesses have nothing to offer — there are retail jewels to be found along the strip, and business improvement associations have added planters to soften the edges — but the buildings seem less than glamorous, without offering the compensatory street theatre that people move to big cities to become a part of.
The city’s heritage department respectfully disagrees.
After two heritage buildings in other parts of the city were peremptorily razed by developers, and as part of a citywide effort to better protect Toronto’s history, staff are using a more proactive approach to conservation that would see 167 of the buildings on or adjacent to Danforth Avenue between Coxwell and Victoria Park added to the heritage register.
Being listed on the register means the city must be advised of an owner’s intention to demolish the property. It gives the city 60 days to determine whether the building merits full preservation or whether the demolition may proceed.
The Danforth recommendations include some obvious choices, like the converted bus terminal diner in the art deco streamline moderne style that is a local landmark, and a brick Masonic Temple at 15 Chisholm Ave., built in 1930. It also includes some not-so-obvious ones, like the sagging wood-frame building at 2726 Danforth Ave., tucked behind a furniture store, which was once the White House Hotel, serving early settlers.
5. Globe and Mail: Toronto's Main Street Listings Alex Bozikovic
Toronto to deem nearly 1,000 buildings as heritage, but are they really?
Toronto Danforth, from the Globe and Mail
Two blocks from Woodbine subway station stand 1842 and 1846 Danforth Avenue. These modest storefronts wrapped in stucco house a nail salon and a grocer. They seem like nothing special. But Toronto heritage planners beg to differ; these are two of 966 buildings that they want to add to the city’s heritage register, because they form part of “a lively and dynamic streetscape.”
This broad-brush move, which will be discussed at Friday’s Toronto Preservation Board meeting, is the most dramatic change to heritage in the city in a generation. It reflects a belief among preservationists that the old commercial main streets need to be saved at all costs.
But the future and the past may collide here on the Danforth. The city’s planning department sees those same buildings as sites for redevelopment. Toronto will add about a million people in the next generation. It needs much more housing and the city’s plan would put much of that housing on sites like this.
How will this be resolved? Can it be? Nobody at city planning seems to know.
6. TRNTO: Theatre Uncovered in Parkdale Harriette Halepis
Historic Parkdale Hall could soon become a new live music venue
Alex Chan had no idea what he was getting into when he decided to open a cannabis store at 1605 Queen St. W. Chan expected to find a new space for his project, but he never thought he’d uncover the remnants of a once-famous 1920s theatre after walking into a utility closet.
“I went into what I thought was a supply closet, and I looked up in the closet, and I saw some of the original ceiling and that made me take a step back and think about why the ceiling was there,” he says.
Based on a hunch, Chan decided to knock down the rest of the ceiling to see if he could uncover more of the “golden rosette” motif. He hired a crew to excavate and found that most of the massive ceiling was still intact despite thousands of holes made by drop-ceiling panels.
“I decided to take down the rest of the drop ceiling and patch-up the rest of the original parts, and that’s how Parkdale Hall got started,” he says.
Chan became intrigued by the building’s history and worked with local historian, Jeremy Hopkin, to uncover the rest of the building’s timeline. What he found was that the building was Allen’s Parkdale Theatre from 1920 to 1923 and various other theatres (including Famous Players) until 1977 when it was turned into Eaton’s Bargain Clearance Store.
Throughout the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s, the building changed hands, frequently moving from retail locations to TV stations and antique shops. Still, nobody noticed or bothered to uncover the space’s original design until Chan decided it was his fate to do so.
“Someone had to bring this history to the public and show this hidden gem, and why shouldn’t that person be me?” he says.
7. TRNTO: Planetarium Site Redevelopment David Olsen
Opposition to development on McLaughlin Planetarium site continues to grow
A decision on a zoning-bylaw amendment that would pave the way for a controversial nine-story development in the Queen’s Park area, as well as the destruction of the McLaughlin Planetarium, has been deferred pending a study of the area’s cultural heritage landscape.
The development is opposed by several nearby residents groups, eight of which have united to form the Queen’s Park Coalition. In a letter to councillor Mike Layton, the coalition called the proposed development disruptive and out of place.
At a meeting of the Toronto and East York Community Council on Oct. 15, councillor Mike Layton successfully moved a motion that the item be referred back to the director of community planning for Toronto and East York District, who is to report back to Community Council when a study of the Queen’s Park cultural heritage landscape is complete.
“There are some concerns with the proposal in the context of Queen’s Park, particularly in between Bloor and College. This is a historic area of Toronto and some concern from heritage experts was that the development hadn’t been looked at in the context of that corridor, that street, that cultural heritage landscape,” said Layton.
“The way typically that applications of this sort are viewed is that the city will ask the applicant to bring forward a heritage study that says it’s appropriate in the context of the surrounding buildings, but in this case there was a desire on the part of city heritage experts, not city staff, but those who we appoint to be on our heritage preservation board, to use that lens to look at the project.”
The delay is good news to Jeffrey Balmer, a Toronto native who now teaches architecture at the University of North Carolina. Balmer launched an online petition to save McLaughlin Planetarium that has garnered more than 12,000 signatures.
8. Toronto Star: Brad Lamb, Happy Hamilton Bowling Alley Owner Kathy Renwal
Toronto developer strikes a deal with Hamilton bowling enthusiast
Toronto condo king Brad Lamb never expected to be running a bowling alley in Hamilton, but then he never met a guy like Lionel Lewis before.
Lamb bought Skyway Lanes in the east end of Hamilton in 2019.
The former owners had bowling burnout. When they closed the doors of the 10-pin bowling alley and sold the low slung building to Lamb, it ended a 62-year run.
“I saw it as a future development site,” Lamb said. “I didn’t intend to head hunt for a guy to run a bowling alley.”
But with 18 developments underway in Ontario, Lamb couldn’t get to this property for another 10 years, sohe put the building up for rent.
That is when Lionel Lewis, an avid bowler and former employee at Skyway Lanes, bolted into action.
“About six months ago, Lionel started bugging me, he was so persistent he got me excited about bowling, about bringing it back,” Lamb says.
