From 1980 to 1988, I lived in that part of the former City of North York known as Willowdale. When I bought my tiny, pre-WWII bungalow, Willowdale still had a small-town feel to it. Despite the fact that the subway had recently punched its way north to bisect Willowdale, and my home was a short ten minute walk from the station, my street was lined with 60 year old trees shading large gardens. Walking home on a summer’s night, the sounds of crickets over-rode that of car traffic and neighbours were people with whom you shared back-yard BBQs if not more substantial parts of your life.
That was soon to change as developers recognised just how much people would pay for a high-rise condominium or monster-house, four times the size of our old bungalows, when it was only a 25 minute subway ride from the financial and commercial heart of Toronto. Or, for that matter and airport and a direct flight to Hong Kong. The first condominiums were located a block or two off Yonge St, presumably where land was less expensive, while the monster homes filled the rest of the block from Yonge east to Bayview Ave. Development to the west was considerably less for reasons unknown to me. Maybe the huge York Cemetery stretching a mile west has something to do with it. As the condos and monster homes rose, the little bungalows came crashing down, the land on which they stood being worth far more than the buildings. In eight years prices escalated 400%.
in the early 1980’s, then North York Mayor Mel Lastman dreamed of creating a new “up-town” city centre filled with commercial, office and residential development. Recognizing the the TTC plan, which placed subway stations over a mile apart, and urbanization were incompatible - people won’t walk half a mile to a subway station and the car will continue to reign supreme - he pushed for the creation of a destination municipal centre complete with a new city hall, library pool and recreation centre, hotel, shopping and office space. To make his dream reality required a new subway station, cutting walking distance in half, and a ring-road system to move traffic off Yonge St and separate local residential neighbourhood traffic from through traffic. It was all quite controversial and a lot of nay-sayers argued to keep Willowdale a village. I confess to being one who supported the plan, sold my house, took the money and never looked back.
Well, seldom looked back. Occasionally like yesterday, I would visit the area to see if/how the plan was coming to fruition. For about five years before retiring, I worked in one of the new office complexes built over the subway and would run through the neighbourhood on my lunch breaks.
The plan has, I think been largely successful. The few condominiums of the early 1980s have exploded into a forest of high-rises fronted by office towers and commercial spaces. Many of them front on Yonge St with commercial space at street level, low rise residential immediately behind and 20+ stories of residential behind that. Interspersed are numerous high-rise office towers. Too many, for my taste, one and two story commercial buildings remain and most look derelict. It appears the owners are just waiting to redevelop the site and unwilling to put money into maintenance and repair. The places look pretty sad. Whereas Yonge St was once lined with parking lots, most of those have vanished under new construction. But the residential condominiums look well occupied and prosperous. They definitely are aimed at a middle class and above income sector and have sold well. I have no way of telling if the office towers are well occupied or not but that part of the plan appears to have succeeded.
What has not been a success is the street front commercial aspect of the redevelopment. There are hundreds of vacant store fronts. Entire complexes have For Lease signs in every shop front. This is important, because the planning and development objectives for Yonge St strip are similar to those Toronto has set for other arterial roads across the city. Street front shops with low-rise residential above and dense residential, i.e. high rise, is the model to support urban intensification which will, in turn, support fast and rapid public transit are the goal.
Judging by north Yonge, commercial is the failing/missing part of the plan. Blocks of never-rented stores, vacant store fronts where tenants have moved-out two years ago - maybe the recession is partly to blame, but that is not adequate explanation. A few developments have succeeded in renting space by dividing the store fronts into 12’ units, or less, and offering them to mom & pop enterprizes, most of which are opened to comply with immigration policy (residency for entrepreneurs promising to open a business and hire employees) and the owners are not really concerned with profitability; only with opening a business and surviving 2 years. Strolling Yonge St, the only businesses that have survived more than a few months seem to be those occupying the low-rent, dilapidated, single story buildings surviving from the 1950s. Mel Lastman’s eponymous square now looks out on a sea of discount stores rather than the quality commercial that was expected. Upscale shops which were early tenants have vanished to be replaces with clearance emporiums. Only restaurants seem to be in demand.
Obviously, people are living in the new down-town North York but they are commuters still. The work and shop elsewhere and come home to Willowdale to sleep, maybe picking-up a fast food dinners on the way.
I still like Willowdale. Sometimes I imagine myself returning to live in one of the condos or town houses when maintaining my suburban home becomes too much of a burden. Maybe as the community matures and recessionary worries retreat, the final part of the plan will come to fruition. The signs are not there yet though, and the planners responsible for other urban intensification projects across Toronto, and indeed the GTA, would do well to take note.
