Toronto's western downtown waterfront is becoming a high-rise enclave. But in the face of stalled development applications, slowing construction and a condo population that's not putting down roots, residents and politicians wonder what's next for the neighbourhood's glass boxes in the sky.
From her 19th-floor window, Kunbinder Saran Caldwell can see for miles--a view of the Rogers Centre and CN tower, cars racing by on the Gardiner Expressway and the skyline lit up at night along the water. That construction pit is her backyard. Caldwell lives in her two-bedroom plus den condo with her husband, her 16-year-old step-daughter and 13-year-old step-son. She’s also three months pregnant.
Caldwell wants to raise her family in a high-rise building in her downtown west neighbourhood, the condo tower-dominated area at the foot of Spadina Avenue, from the Skydome and sprawling westward.
And while she says more of the Cityplace-complex residents are using facilities such as the gym, theatre and party rooms because they have less money to spend, it’s not fostering a sense of community.
“There’s a lot of transient people that come in that rent for about a year, or less, and they move on. They purchase a place or they move on to a different community,” she says. “Along our floor there are a lot of people who are tenants now.”
She worries about the neighbourhood leaving a mark on the city, and doesn’t like the idea of temporary glass boxes housing up-and-coming professionals who will eventually move on. It leaves the area without the personality entrenched in so many other neighbourhoods in the city.
“We do need more of a social aspect of those individuals that are going to stay rooted. Some continuity, some sort of history. We’re part of this community; this is what we want for our future,” Caldwell says. “I think we’ve started that process … however it hasn’t gone forward that much due to tough economic times, people get busier, their priorities change. They’re just trying to take care of their families.”
PROCEED WITH CAUTION
There’s a gaping hole in the ground on Niagara Street. The pit, just south of Queen Street West in downtown Toronto, stands empty because the project has been put on hold. A glance at the surrounding skyline’s cranes and half-constructed towers make Adam Vaughan’s point quite well: “While nobody’s going bankrupt and no project’s been capped, the timetables for every building have been stretched out now to two or three years beyond where they were going to be completed and inhabited and sold.”
Applications for high-rises in the city’s westerly downtown core have plummeted from one a day last year to not a single one passing through Councillor Vaughan’s office since June.
“For the first couple of years I’ve been in office, I’ve been receiving one a day. In June, the tap just turned off completely,” he says.
Vaughan oversees Ward 20 (Trinity Spadina), which encompasses the high-rise community on the northwest side of the Gardiner Expressway. It’s not just prospective developers and contractors that are taking a hit, he says.
“In and around September, October, sales in the various buildings in the ward just stopped. There’s been very little uptake in new condominium sales in the city. There hasn’t been a new sales office open, even for approved buildings, since before Christmas,” he adds.
And when the units aren’t selling, no one knows what happens next.
The area bound by freeways and train tracks isn’t a vibrant, family-oriented community right now. Bordered by busy freeways and construction sites, the neighbourhood seems to be at a standstill. There’s a park under construction, Vaughan says, and plans are going forward to build an elementary school.
GHOSTS OF HIGH-RISES PAST
In the 1960s, a series of condo towers went up on the block bordered by Wellesley, Sherbourne, Bloor and Parliament streets. The neighbourhood, known as St. James Town, now holds 19 high-rise condo towers, many which are rife with poverty, crime and destitution. It’s said to house nearly 30,000 people within a single block.
“The companies that owned it didn’t put a lot of money into keeping the buildings in tip-top shape because they were cash cows,” says John Sewell, former Toronto mayor and longtime activist.
“They said this was the building that swingers want to live in. Well at the end of the day, you don’t. As the buildings fall into disrepair and the elevators don’t work so well, people move out.
“It’s a problem of high-rise buildings generally, so there are lots of buildings that are comparable problems.”
'I'M NOT CONCERNED'
Gary Wright’s not concerned about Toronto’s neighbourhoods retaining their distinctive personalities through the recession. He's the city's chief planner, and acknowledges that Cityplace is taking steps to make their communities more family-oriented. It’s not an area he’s worried about.
“I don’t see a direct threat to neighbourhoods at this time, with respect to development vis-à-vis the recession. I don’t think there’s a direct link in that way right now,” he says.
Instead, Wright is more concerned with employment, which is being supplemented by city council’s endeavors to create jobs for construction workers such as filling potholes. Mayor David Miller announced in March that between 2,000 and 3,5000 construction jobs would be created or maintained through those jobs.
“I think the bigger issues around the recession are employment, the vitality of the city and making sure our economy stays healthy so that when the recovery comes, we are ready to continue the development process and the growth of the city.”