What Our Neighbours Are Building

The view from Fort York east across Bathurst Street will change substantially in the next year or two as three properties between Lakeshore Boulevard and Niagara Street are redeveloped. Already, foundations for two residential towers (1524 units) have been excavated on Fort York Boulevard between Bathurst and Dan Leckie Way, opposite the new Fort York branch library. Next, on Bathurst between Front and Niagara streets, north of the rail corridor, Minto Communities Inc. is now marketing the ‘Westside,’ a 1200-unit condo building. A few years ago several workshops among neighbourhood stakeholders and the developer’s architects, chaired by then-Councillor Adam Vaughan, helped refine its design to lessen the impact of the building’s great mass on Victoria Memorial Square and the view from Fort York. The third major project on Bathurst is Wittington’s reworking of the historic 1928 Loblaw’s Groceteria warehouse at Lakeshore Boulevard and Bathurst for retail and office uses. The walls of this heritage structure are being numbered, taken down, and stored for re-erection around a new core topped by a couple of stories of office space. To the north of this structure two striking new condo towers (851 units) are proposed that, like the Fort York Visitor Centre, turn the area under the adjacent Gardiner Expressway to their advantage as a courtyard and entrance to the retail uses at the base of the towers.