[PHOTO] Not yet a park, at 11 Wellesley Street West

[rfmcdonald]

I made a couple of posts in 2012 about an effort to make a plot of land on Wellesley west of Yonge into a park. That effort failed, and the plot of land will host a condo tower. That condo tower, though, as described by Ryan Starr in a May 2014 Toronto Star article.

When developer Mark Mandelbaum envisages his company’s new condo project, 11 Wellesley on the Park, he sees green.

A slender and curvaceous 60-storey condominium tower planned for a three-acre site just west of the intersection at Yonge St., 11 Wellesley promises to be a big seller, given its prime downtown location and trendy design aesthetic. (Suites starting at $199,900.)

But it’s not the sales prospects that have Mandelbaum seeing green at 11 Wellesley on the Park. The development will include a 1.6-acre public park, a badly needed and long-pushed-for addition to a densely populated community that suffers from a lack of green space.

“Rarely do you have the opportunity to work on a piece of land that’s so significant, in such a significant location, with the added advantage of having it become part of the public realm,” notes Mandelbaum, chairman of Lanterra Developments.

The park will take up more than two-thirds of the 11 Wellesley site, with the condo tower situated at the northeast corner of the property, yielding as much land as possible for green space. Previous plans for 11 Wellesley — once owned by the province, whose intentions were to build a ballet and opera house there but ultimately sold the vacant land to Lanterra several years ago — contemplated a multi-tower project with up to 1,000 units and a parkette.

Lanterra’s plan now for 11 Wellesley consolidates 742 units into a single tower located at the top corner of the property, creating more room for sunlight as well as a larger urban park, which will be designed in consultation with the community. (Meantime the developer has created park renderings, to provide “an idea of what is possible with this size of land,” Mandelbaum says.)

“We’re pretty happy,” says Rick Whitten-Stovall, president of the Bay Cloverhill Community Association, who recalls taking part in a march from Queen’s Park to the empty 11 Wellesley site several years ago in an unsuccessful effort to convince the province to sell the land for use as green space. “There’s been a warm reception (in the community) to the idea that the park is finally going to really happen now.”

Still, this site is not yet a park. It's currently a mere promise abiding.