Ontario Construction News staff writer
Developers have filed an official plan amendment and rezoning application to turn an Etobicoke service station into a 59-storey mixed-use development with 650 residential units.
The site at 2189 Lakeshore Blvd. W. currently is occupied by an ESSO station. The land use will change radically if the proposed design by Wallman Architects for Marlin Spring Developments is approved by Toronto city planners. The new structure will have a two through 11 storey base that gradually steps back with terraces as the building rises, Urban Toronto reports.
While this is a big change, it is consistent with developments nearby. Next door to the east the recently completed Eau Du Soleil, the 66 storey Sky Tower, and the 49 storey Water Tower. If approved, this condo building would be the second tallest tower on the lake side of Lake Shore Boulevard. Sky Tower currently is the tallest tower at 66 storeys high, DataBid.com says.
“There is tremendous growth in this area with recent and future development. There is the 28 acre former Mr. Christies site at 2150 Lake Shore where about a dozen towers and several shorter buildings are designed in a way to create a full community over the coming two decades out of the current strip-like form of Humber Bay Shores,” the weekly DataBid newsletter says. “A new GO station at Park Lawn Road is coming along with enhanced streetcar service.”
The planned new Lake Shore West development will include 665 sq. m. of ground floor retail, with a total ground floor area of 44,915 sq. m. and a site density of 16.4 FSI (the
ratio of the gross floor area to the urban site area.)
The proposed development will have a residential lobby along the west building face, and two “public realm” ares, 11.5 m. wide between the building face at grade, and 10 m. wide on Marine Parade.
There will be a second storey dedicated to storage (resident lockers), short-term bicycle storage and mechanical/electrical rooms, with the third level dedicated for residential amenities and an additional 335 sq. m. of additiona amenity space on Level 4, where the residential units will begin.
There will also be four underground parking levels and 652 bicycle spaces.
Livabl reports that e site has been a service station since the late 1940s as part of a postwar wave of highway commercial development along the former Highway Two, which led to the creation of a strip of motels. Humber Bay Shores was formerly known as the Motel Strip where these motels operated along the south side of Lake Shore Boulevard West up until the late 1990s and early 2000s.