Bringing a bit of downtown to the ’burbs
Developers are transforming the suburbs with denser, more downtown-like pockets, complete with parkland, cultural spaces and walkable dining and shopping
THE LOOK AND FEEL OF THESE NEW SUBURBAN COMMUNITIES TENDS TO BE CONTEMPORARY. THEY ARE DESIGNED TO APPEAL TO YOUNG PEOPLE WHO WANT THAT DOWNTOWN LIFESTYLE BUT CAN’T AFFORD A DOWNTOWN ADDRESS. — MATTI SIEMIATYCKI
Before Senator Marian Maloney Park opened in late 2019, Lindsay Mcbean says she never once crossed the Queensway to take her husky, Skeena, for a walk. Fast-forward two years and visits to the landscaped public expanse fronting the four-tower IQ condo complex are daily events for the 30-year resident of nearby Woolgar Avenue in South Etobicoke.
“This whole area is changing so much,” Mcbean says, referring to the former industrial lands bordered on the north and south by the Queensway and Gardiner Expressway, and to the east and west by St. Lawrence and Kipling avenues. “When I moved here in the ’90s, this was pure suburbia. Now it feels a lot more like downtown.”
While ongoing improvements in transit, road and cycling infrastructure are reducing the time it takes for suburbanites to reach Toronto proper, condo developers are bringing downtown to the ’burbs by adding public parks and cultural venues, and importing some urban flair by replacing decades-old strip malls with contemporary dining and shopping spaces on the ground floors of mixed-use projects.
There’s a reason developers are increasingly stepping up to provide public amenities. The Ontario government’s controversial Housing Supply Action Plan amalgamated and capped the fees paid by developers to fund municipal infrastructure, making community planning more dependent on developers’ profit-driven proposals, and less dependent on taxpayer-funded municipal works.
This isn’t sitting well with some of the municipalities. Mississauga’s city manager and chief administrative officer Janice Baker says that “any reduction in funds as a result of this change will limit our ability to provide adequate park, recreation, library and other infrastructure. This is the very infrastructure that promotes health, social inclusion and drives quality of life in a community.”
Given the hit on municipal coffers, developers must commit to providing enough infrastructure upgrades and additions to win support for their projects from city councils. This means they must pay closer attention to prospective buyers’ off-property preferences — preferences that have changed mark- edly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In the development in- dustry, COVID has refocused attention on building com- plete communities where people can walk and cycle to the types of services they need in their daily lives,” says Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Geography and Planning. These communities, he adds, are becoming especially prevalent in the suburbs, where land is less costly and gentrification has yet to set in.
At the same time, the pandemic has spurred an urban exodus among millennial house hunters who are unable to afford downtown prices but are suddenly able to avoid commuting by working more often from home.
“That’s why the look and feel of these new suburban communities tends to be contemporary,” Siemiatycki says. “They are designed to appeal to young people who want that downtown lifestyle but can’t afford a downtown address.”
The proliferation of large suburban projects has carried the GTA condo construction boom through the pandemic. At the end of 2020, a record 81,029 condo units were under construction across the GTA, the Urbanation real-estate consultancy reports, with starts for new units increasing 9 per cent from 2019 and reaching the second-highest level on record. At the same time, a record 22,473 new suites reached completion. Of these new units, sales in the 905 region accounted for more than half of the GTA’S 2020 total for the first time ever. Sales in the City of Toronto, on the other hand, plummeted 38 per cent to the lowest levels in more than 15 years.
The Festival and Mobilio highrise condo projects near the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre subway stop are prime examples of urban amenities rising in the suburbs. In addition to sharing 45 acres of parks and 17 kilometres of trails, the neighbouring pre-construction projects by Menkes and Quadreal Property Group will feature an open-air gym and a community centre with an outdoor stage.
Camrost Felcorp’s threeacre Exchange District near Burnhamthorpe Road West and Hurontario Street in Mississauga will spread hundreds of trees over landscaped public parks, while offering more than 2 million square feet of retail, shopping, dining, office and commercial spaces, as well as a boutique hotel. “It’s become increasingly clear that it’s not enough for us to have a little rooftop dining area with a couple of trees,” says spokesman Christopher Castellano, adding that new master-planned developments allocate far more space and facilities for outdoor recreation than they used to, increasing the value of nearby residential property.
Back in Etobicoke’s Senator Marian Maloney Park, Lindsay Mcbean points across Zorra Avenue toward the busy construction site for Altree Developments’ Thirtysix Zorra condo tower, which is slated to bring another park to the neighbourhood when it opens in 2023.
“I’m looking into getting a place there when I retire,” she says wistfully. “Seeing all the young people around here makes me feel young, and I want to feel that way all the time.”