Hundreds of affordable units will soon tower over CityPlace
The site in question is currently an ugly lot at the foot of Fort York
A vacant lot between CityPlace and Bathurst will soon be the site of a new municipal residential development, adding 286 rental units, 134 of which will be designated as affordable, to one of Toronto’s densest zip codes.
The Toronto Community Housing Corporation is leading the 37-storey project at 150 Queens Wharf via Toronto’s Housing Now program, created in 2019 to fund and build accessible housing on excess city-owned land such as empty lots, parking garages and vacant offices.
The slender tower will come with an EarlyOn Child and Family Centre, four elevators, more than 1,000 square metres of indoor amenities and a quirky 12-sided floor plan to optimize residents’ views. But the complex’s crown jewel is the new Lower Garrison Creek Park, which will spill under Bathurst’s Sir Isaac Brock Bridge directly into Fort York. TCHC has also eliminated all studio units from the original design, replacing them with larger one-bedrooms and family-friendly two- and three-bedrooms.
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The city desperately needs this sort of housing, but the development’s density remains a concern for locals. The neighbourhood’s transit riders have long suffered on slow, packed streetcars, and motorists understand the near impossibility of getting on or off the Gardiner Expressway.
Yet massive transit relief is on the way: the Bathurst streetcar is getting dedicated lanes for the FIFA World Cup, a GO station is coming to Spadina and Front, and the Ontario Line will have a stop at King and Bathurst. The CityPlace condo crowd just has to hang on a few more years.
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Barry Jordan Chong is the city and real estate editor at Toronto Life. He lives and writes in Toronto.
