The neigh­bour­hood of Alexan­dra Park is bounded to the north by Dun­das Street West, Spad­ina Avenue to the east, Queen Street West on the south, and Bathurst Street on the west. Alexan­dra Park con­sists of pri­vate and pub­lic hous­ing, with retail along Queen Street West and Spad­ina Avenue, some insti­tu­tional, and sev­eral com­mer­cial build­ings scat­tered through the neigh­bor­hood. The neigh­bor­hood takes its name from Alexan­dra Park, a munic­i­pal park at the south-east cor­ner of Dun­das and Bathurst Streets. The park is named for Queen Alexan­dra, wife of King Edward VII.

The his­tory of the area begins with the orig­i­nal sur­vey of the north­ern shore of Lake Ontario con­ducted by Augus­tus Jones in 1791. The sur­vey estab­lished a base­line soon to be called Lot Street (later renamed Queen Street). The area now known as Alexan­dra Park was then the south­ern por­tions of lots 16, 17 and 18 of Con­ces­sion 1 of the Town­ship of York. When the City of Toronto was incor­po­rated in 1834, it included the area 400 yards to the north of Queen Street, roughly the loca­tion of present day Grange Street. The remain­der of the area was annexed by the city in 1859.

Alexan­dra Park Real Estate Map

The area was pur­chased from the Deni­son fam­ily in 1841 by Sir Casimir Gzowski, a Pol­ish engi­neer who built his grand home, which he called ‘The Hall’, at what is now the south-east cor­ner of Dun­das West and Bathurst. In the 1920s and 1930s, a neigh­bour­hood sprang up around Gzowski’s home that was inhab­ited largely by Pol­ish and Ukrain­ian immi­grants. The Hall and many of the sur­round­ing homes where demol­ished to make way for a pub­lic hous­ing project in the 1960s. The pub­lic hous­ing projects brought in many immi­grants from the Caribbean, East Africa, China and Viet­nam. Alexan­dra Park is known for hav­ing one of the largest African Cana­dian com­mu­ni­ties in Toronto.

Drugs and vio­lence became a huge prob­lem in the 1970s and 80s and a crack epi­demic swept the area. In the early 1990s, a group of Alexan­dra Park res­i­dents sought to con­vert the gov­ern­ment hous­ing com­plex to self-governing co-operative hous­ing. It was an attempt to stop the oppres­sion and drug wars the project had been fac­ing for many years. Today, Alexan­dra Park is recov­er­ing from its harsh bat­tles in the past and mak­ing an effort to turn a new leaf.

Alexan­dra Park Redevelopment

Start­ing in August 2009, Toronto Com­mu­nity Hous­ing staff and a team of con­sul­tants led by Urban Strate­gies Inc. began work­ing with Alexan­dra Park res­i­dents, fig­ur­ing out their com­mu­nity and what revi­tal­iza­tion could mean for them. Alexan­dra Park includes the 263 town­houses and two apart­ment build­ings that make up Atkin­son Hous­ing Co-operative, plus the Toronto Com­mu­nity Hous­ing build­ings at 20 Vanauley (Queen Vanauley) and 91 Augusta (Alexan­dra Park Seniors Apartments).

After a long period of com­mu­nity con­sul­ta­tion, The Toronto Com­mu­nity Hous­ing Cor­po­ra­tion has com­pleted plans for a major revi­tal­iza­tion of the Atkin­son Co-op and sur­round­ing areas of Alexan­dra Park. TCHC sub­mit­ted Offi­cial Plan Amend­ment and Rezon­ing appli­ca­tions in March, 2011 and held a com­mu­nity meet­ing to present the plan to local residents.

The plan envis­ages major changes to the neigh­bor­hood, phased in over a 15-year period. Sev­eral streets that were closed off when the com­plex was first con­structed will be reopened. A total of 333 town­houses and apart­ments will be demol­ished and replaced, while 473 units in the tow­ers at 20 Vanauley Street, 91 Augusta Street and 71 Augusta Square will be ren­o­vated. Finally, 1,540 units of market-value con­dos and town­homes will be added. Some retail units on the south side of Dun­das Street West, along with new pub­lic parks and pri­vate amenity spaces will also be added.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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