Redevelopment with a focus on community
As QuadReal Property Group gears up for the public unveiling of its latest plans for the future of Cloverdale Mall, Connie Laguan, along with other seniors who live nearby, pictures the ways the redevelopment can be tailored to her needs as she ages in the community.
She imagines an attractive site comprised of mixed-use buildings, with affordable and accessible residential units for seniors and lots of outdoor green space.
“I would like to see lots of beautiful trees,” she said. “If there are not beautiful trees, people don’t feel like going outside — they don’t feel like sitting on a bench.”
The Etobicoke resident, who has been living in the area for 45 years, often frequents the mall, where she has lately been partaking in seniors’ classes as part of the recently established Cloverdale Common. The Common, which opened in December 2018, is a publicly accessible area of the mall where patrons can walk through and read information about the new development plans for the site. It is also home to different types of community programming throughout the week.
Laguan said having space where she can spend time with other community members is one main element she would like to see continue through the new development.
“As far as I’m concerned, seniors don’t like to be isolated,” she said. “I like these classes. It’s like we’re in school.”
She added that when it comes to the housing component, she hopes there won’t be an influx of luxury condominiums.
“Seniors are on a fixed income,” she said. “They have to have affordable housing.”
Longtime Etobicoke resident Rosalind D’Costa agreed, adding that she can only hope the seniors’ units that will be built will not be too small.
“Don’t build matchboxes,” she said. “We are the generation used to bigger homes.”
QuadReal’s plan for the new development is to replace the existing mall with a new form of urban retail, community uses, residential uses, parkland, new streets and blocks, and culture and health programming, which will be built in phases.
“We’re really looking to embellish the sense of place that it has now with net new uses that will hopefully make this new Cloverdale a hub for the community,” Ben Gilbank, director of development at QuadReal, said.
He said QuadReal plans on going back to Cloverdale’s roots, by creating an open-air centre on the site, similar to the style in which it was first built in the 1950s.
With regard to housing, Gilbank said the company is taking a “multi-generational approach” that will include high-, mid- and lowrise buildings with both condo and rental units available.
“QuadReal is looking at it from the perspective of a mix of typologies and tenures of the residential that makes it a real, complete community,” he said, adding that they are committed to an affordable housing component as well.
“It would be an appropriate place for seniors in term of accessibility and design,” he added.
In terms of retail, QuadReal’s plan is to bring back a number of key tenants while, expanding and updating the retail offerings to include fashion and health and wellness options.
Gilbank said QuadReal also plans to reintroduce food in a way that has been absent from the mall, through a food hall concept, as well as restaurants and, potentially, outdoor markets.
Architect Ralph Giannone said that though they are still in the “doodling” phase of the project, the plan is to create a development that still maintains that emotional connection residents currently have to the mall while also looking at tailoring the new uses to the ways people live and shop today.
“It’s saying we are going to create a great neighbourhood amenity that is going to have people that work there, people that shop there, people that leisure there, people that live there,” he added.
Property group plans to bring Etobicoke’s Cloverdale Mall back to its 1950s roots