[URBAN NOTE] "Redevelopment of Honest Ed’s in Toronto holds several surprises"

[rfmcdonald]

The Globe and Mail's Alex Bozikovic describes how the plans for redeveloping Honest Ed's actually seem quite forward-thinking, even exciting in their ambition.

“There’s no place like this place… anyplace.” That’s one of the many slogans hand-painted on the facades of Honest Ed’s; and the plans to redevelop the discount store, and the adjacent group of buildings called Mirvish Village, will live up to that slogan in ways Ed Mirvish wouldn’t have expected.

On Tuesday night, the developer that owns the 1.8-hectare downtown Toronto site, Westbank, and its architect, Vancouver’s Gregory Henriquez, presented their plans at a public open house. While the project’s design is in flux, the plans include several surprises: 1,000 rental apartments, many of them family-sized, and no condominiums for sale; a permanent public market; and retail space largely divided into small units that mimic the scale of existing storefronts on Bloor Street.

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The project, which has not yet been submitted to the city for approval, would raze Honest Ed’s. Mr. Henriquez’s office has designed new buildings that form solid street walls along Bloor and Bathurst and along Lennox Street to the south. They would incorporate three towers of 29, 22 and 21 storeys. Behind them would be a low, glass-roofed Mirvish Village Market (selling food and crafts). To the south, two pedestrian-only laneways would cut the block, lined with small retail and live-work spaces filled with the help of the Centre for Social Innovation.

The promise of about 1,000 rental apartments is dramatic news. Developers have recently begun building rentals in Toronto again. According to a report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, about 1,100 were built in the region from 2013 to 2014. This would add 1,000 in one place – and Westbank promises half will be two-, three- or four-bedroom units.

The plan would leave intact most of the houses and small commercial buildings on Markham Street. These would become destination restaurants, expanded discreetly and served by a bike valet service that connects to an underground bicycle shop and service area. Ms. Rosenberg imagines Markham Street with one consistent swath of paving, integrating the road and sidewalk and with an 11-metre space for patios. (Her firm has three ideas for what it would look like, including one inspired by the crooked floors of Honest Ed’s and the colour-field painting David Mirvish showed at his gallery on Markham Street in the 1970s.)