Tag Archives: tower automotive
Dufferin Grove
Many neighbourhoods in the city are simply collections of streets, with no real centre. Dufferin Grove, with its namesake park, is an exception. The park istself has become a focal point for this very local-minded neighbourhood – and has given rise to a wide range of neighbourly actvities including potluck suppers, year-round farmers’ markets and a communal outdoor oven. There’s even Wi-Fi in the park for afternoon bench surfing!
Dufferin Grove is a popular family oriented neighbourhood located close to downtown Toronto. This neighbourhood has excellent amenities including a popular community park, a shopping centre, excellent schools and and convenient access to public transit.
Dufferin Grove Real Estate Map
Dufferin Grove Park has received lots of media attention in the past for its pivotal role in revitalizing the Dufferin Grove neighbourhood. Creating a centre for the neighbourhood, the park generates a strong sense of community among area residents. This park has become a community centre without any walls – so popular that local residents affectionately refer to it as their Big Backyard.
A natural extension of that community mindset, the Grove Community School opened in 2009 and touts a curriculum based on social justice and the environment. Some of the local schools such as Kent School on Dufferin fit in with the architectural motif. Others, such as Dewson Street Junior Public School have more of a modernist feel to them. The Bloor and Gladsone branch of the Toronto Library was recently renoivated and makes for a lovely addition to the Bloor streetscape.
Dufferin Grove Park
The neighbourhood stretches from Bloor to Dundas, but Bloor is usually considered part of Dovercourt Park to the north, and Dundas is usually attached more to Little Portugal/Beaconsfield Village to the south, so College ends up being the main retail strip of the Dufferin Grove neighbourhood. It is not the most vibrant section of College, with most of the Little Italy panache petering out after Ossington. It can, however hold its own with a mix of residential buildings and eclectic shops.
Pretty streets such as Rusholme offer an impressive degree of serenity and boast a surprisingly high number of detached homes so close to the city core. The neighbourhood is fairly family-heavy, and Portuguese remains the dominant language in some areas. Brockton Village, which occupies the western half of the district, draws artists with its affordable real estate prices.
Dufferin Grove Real Estate
Some local churches have been converted to lofts, namely the Centennial Methodist Church at 701 Dovercourt, with the Anglican church of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Cyprian at 40 Westmoreland on its 3rd attempt. There are even lofts carved out of the hall attached to Dovercourt-St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on Hepbourne Street – where Conn Smythe taught Sunday school!
The majority of Dufferin Grove houses were built between 1890 and 1930. Dufferin Grove’s semi-detached and detached houses are larger than those found in many other downtown Toronto neighbourhoods. The architectural style of the homes in Dufferin Grove range from early and late Victorian to Edwardian and English Cottage style designs. Expect to see a lot of newer brick homes, many from the 1970s-1990s.
On the western side of Duffrin Grove, Sterling Road is home to many industrial buildings, some of which have been converted into furniture stores, play space for sporting clubs – including the Toronto Backyard Axe Throwing League. The lands around the railway tracks, stretching all the way past Bloor Street and the neighbourhood boundaries, could see big changes in coming years. Developers are floating plans to turn the old Tower Automotive grounds into a mixed-use neighborhood much like the Distillery District or Liberty Village.
The Dufferin Grove area was first settled by the Denison Family, who emigrated to Canada from England in 1792. The Denisons were active participants in Toronto’s early military and political affairs. Their country villas were Toronto landmarks, that had titles such as “Dover Court”, “Rush Holme” and “Heydon Villa” – giving their names to many local streets.
—————————————————————————————————–
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.
—————————————————————————————————–
Incoming search terms
Developer, Nestlé at odds over west end industrial land
Asher Greenberg – Globe and Mail
A major developer, the city, residents and Nestlé are squabbling over what to do with a patch of industrial land in the city’s west end.
Castlepoint Realty is proposing to build a mixed-use residential development next to the chocolate factory on Sterling Road – 45 new townhomes with live-work spaces, new office towers complete with urban agriculture rooftops, a public square, and revitalization of the heritage Tower Automotive building.
But Nestlé is not on board. In a letter to Toronto’s planning office, it expressed concerns over the introduction of residential units so close to its plant. Residents, however, generally support the bid by the developer to revitalize the desolate stretch of land.
You wouldn’t know there was anything worth arguing about by just passing through on Bloor Street. Rubble-strewn brownfields, dark alleys and former industrial buildings stretch a few square kilometres in Toronto’s South Junction Triangle neighbourhood, sandwiched between Bloor and Dundas, and sealed by GO train tracks on either side.
But there is life as well. A walk down one of those dark pot-holed alleys reveals parents picking up children from an aerial dance class, artists painting ceiling-high canvasses, and a man spray-painting a table for use in a cabaret number. Live-work lofts intermingle with family townhomes, auto-body shops lie a few blocks from the chic Zocalo bistro, and the smell of chocolate wafts from the giant Nestlé plant.
The site in dispute was home to Alcan – originally Northern Aluminum Co. – for more than 80 years. When it was constructed in 1919, the 10-storey building was among the tallest in Canada, and one of the first with an elevator. The city declared it a heritage site in 2005 shortly before then owner, Tower Automotive, went into bankruptcy.
Castlepoint purchased the plot in 2007 and partnered with Rio Tinto Alcan to clean up the property. The environmental remediation was “a great favour to the community,” said local business owner Heather Braaten. When plans for the construction of movie studios on the land fell through, the developers instead proposed a mixed-use site.
The trouble is Nestlé is concerned the factory that operates 24/7, with its noises, trucking, and smells, could become a source of friction with the new residents, said Sarah Phipps, the city planner handling this project. The “thoughtless juxtaposition of industrial and residential uses inevitably leads to complaints by the residential occupants,” Nestlé told the city, “in such a scenario, it is always the industrial user who suffers to a greater or lesser degree.”
At the last community meeting, in October, some residents countered that Ward 18’s other chocolate factory, Cadbury, has peaceably co-existed with its residential neighbours just across the street for many years.
The other problem is that Castlepoint’s development would mean the city loses more industrial employment land. Because of an overlapping study on this problem, the various stakeholders may have to wait up to a year for the planning department to conclude its report. “The city has a tendency to plan things to death,” said John C. O’Keefe Jr., a senior partner at Castlepoint.
Mr. O’Keefe said that Castlepoint has made an effort to hear the community’s concerns, hosting five or six meetings before submitting the application. At the recent meeting, Castlepoint chief executive officer Alfred Romano unexpectedly committed 10 per cent of the new residential units to social housing.
Castlepoint is negotiating this month with Artscape, a non-profit developer that subsidizes residential and work spaces for artists. The company has contributed below-market lofts to the re-development of the Distillery District, Liberty Village, and West Queen West, among other sites. Typically, Artscape mediates between private developers, artists and the wider community “to find a win-win-win scenario,” said CEO Tim Jones. Mr. Jones would not comment specifically on 158 Sterling, citing concerns over creating expectations too early in the negotiation process.
Whether the planning department ultimately recommends the project, in the end it will come down to a vote at City Hall late next year. The Ward’s Councillor, Ana Bailao, has not made a firm commitment regarding which way she’ll vote. This project “is going to be very interesting,” said Ms. Bailao’s constituency assistant, Anna Kral. “Because from what I’ve experienced, they are very hesitant about the residential. So you have to make a choice. Do we keep Nestlé or do we build up the community?”
———————————————————————————————————————
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.
———————————————————————————————————————
Incoming search terms
Related posts:
- Carlaw’s raw condo power is gritty and industrial The Printing Factory Lofts (at Queen and Carlaw) took a...
- Developer chosen to build 1,700 waterfront condos Backed by an $800-million private-sector investment, the plan includes new...
- Industrial evolution Loft conversion projects are transforming abandoned factory lands into residential...
- Industrial graveyard now trendy loft central In a way, the real estate boom in the 1980s...
- Developer dismayed by Ford threat to waterfront project The founder of a giant Texas development conglomerate that secured...
