The west local gap and rights of access to the waterfront

[caption id="attachment_6780" align="aligncenter" width="473" caption="The west local gap at Parkdale"][/caption]

This author has had the opportunity to walk west and then back again from St Josephs hospital in the past months quite a bit. What really struck during the walks was the what the blog is naming the west local gap - the west ends  portion of a problem that extends across the city.  The gap of continuity of place and neighborhood the Gardiner expressway and the QEW  as well as the Lakeshore Rd create between the west commnities and the waterfront.

The view above taken from the hospitals front is right across from one of the west waterfronts most beautiful areas. To arrive at this area one must walk almost three blocks east past the TTC yards to Queen St - cross to reach a pedestrian bridge, or walk about 4 blocks to the west and cross at 2 sets of lights traveling south.

Should these roads be moved underground?  Yes it would cost but the benefits would out weigh  the cost.

Royal Meat Bbq - local west BBQ restaurant 710 Kipling Ave

Royal Meats  BBQ at 710  Kipling Ave caught the eye of this post author simply because of it's stylish revamping of what once was a coffee shop. This place appeared  so well designed  seemed from the roadway and y wanting find a new place to eat in locally in the west end, while making a left hand turn it was decided to have dinner there.

The service was great, and the menu choices designed in  manner that you choose a from a front counter set up like a butcher shop.  In addition to the unique menu, the place has custom designed chairs and possibly tables, which are a interesting blend of water of laser cut thin aluminium sheet and steel, with the steel being powder coated a grey black smooth finish. The restaurant has a smooth colour palate   that blends everything wonderfully together.

Royal Meats Goggle Image search

Link to their ad video - it is worth the look as they provide their farm to restaurant model

link to menu open web page of a PDF

Review at Chowhound

HOLLAND MARINE PRODUCTS leaving the Junction

The  two One  Tielen sons  (we have been properly admonished by Peter Tielen that he alone is the owner of HMP now) ...This text is the blogs apology to him, and we stuck it in the middle of the post so everyone will see it. are moving their business out of the Junction down to the Lakeshore Rd., Mimico area. Their father ran this business for a long time before his sons began running  it some - well a lot  years ago.  A large part of the business during the earlier years was upholstery work for boats which their father was excellent at designing as well as the sale of boating goods.



another old Junction business leaves sadly...

just in case you didn't know who /what this business was  from their site

Holland Marine Products® is a Marine Chandlery supplying hardware from the largest inventory in Ontario, if not Canada. We are the source for those parts that in the past were only available from manufacturers. All boating accessories, from hardware, navigational needs, sailing aids, maintenance products

Western Waterfront Master Plan - post 1

[caption id="attachment_1913" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Outlined area represents study area"][/caption]

The city of Toronto is currently engaged in a Western Waterfront Master Plan study. The purpose of the is to study on the type and location of park facilities, improvements to transportation, transit and pedestrian links with surrounding neighbourhoods.

[caption id="attachment_2045" align="alignright" width="500" caption="Aerial of Sunnyside Amusement Park 1926"][/caption]

The Western Waterfront Master Plan covers the area south of High Park bounded by the Humber River to the west and Marilyn Bell Park in the east. the area is 41 hectares or 101 acres in size and four kilometres long.

[caption id="attachment_2050" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Areas of possible "community" expansion "][/caption]

The railway tracks have divided the land north of the waterfront from the parkland since before the communities were created, and with the addition of the QEW expressway and Lake Shore Drive lane additions (1957) access to the the waterfront was severely cutoff.  Many people have experienced the very difficult and extremely unpleasant crossing of the road/track gap from Parkside Dr , Dunn Ave, or Ellis Rd and most any other point along the length of the study area. Reading though the city site (linked below) they  have a considerable number of ideas to create  more usable beach areas and public space.  Yet the connection to the communities though strolling and other means of simple access are not addressed.  Doing this without affecting the traffic which seems to be very important in Toronto, is going to require a expensive and large flyover of some sort, maybe more than one.  A unobstructed bridge object - one which is more than a bridge in fact a activity space itself, would greatly enhance the project each and every hour and every day for thousands of people.

Links

City of Toronto overall project site http://www.toronto.ca/waterfront/wwmp.htm

companies hired by the city to work on the project.

BAgroup BA Group (transportation planning and engineering services), in partnership with planningAlliance (planning and design practice), was awarded the project of developing the Master Plan for Toronto’s Western Waterfront parkland and area.

Consill

MIMICOFEST grass roots community - starts

"A Community Celebration conceived and directed by Arturo Fresolone" with arts and crafts exhibit and sale, yard sale, live music, dance and theatre. Children's activities include: interactive storytelling for parents and children and book colouring facilitated by the artist.

Amos Waites Park (Lakeshore Blvd. W. at Mimico Ave.) on Sunday, August 31st, 2008 from 3pm to 8:30pm.

For more information call: 416-503-4129

Posted By David

Are the Junction and Mimico WTO’s locus for American style drinking establishments?

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Another entrepreneur is planning to open a boutique drinking establishment along Mimico's Lakeshore Blvd West. A couple guys, including the owners, are renovating this modest store front on the north side and hope to open Dean Martini's in the next few months and add a front patio area (like Cafe du Lac, just up the street) for next year's warm season.

The junction has a few boutique drinking establishments too, no doubt they bring afternoon and nightly traffic to the areas, and hopefully each area can balance their numbers to serve the communities rather than dominate them.

Posted By David and Robert

Are the city's pipes causing your basement flooding?

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If you have a chronically leaky basement, chances are, the city already knows about it.

Reading thorough the city web page on chronically leaky basements on the City of Toronto web site, you quickly become aware of how serious the issue of basement leakage in older homes may not simply be the result of deterioration of older homes, but probably is greatly contributed too by the city’s failing water pipe and sewage pipe systems.

The next public meeting is for the areas outlined below. At the City of Toronto's site you can see maps to other areas.
The City of Toronto is having what is calls a "Municipal Class Environmental Assessment Study to assess the causes and impacts of, and develop remedial solutions to basement flooding" in four areas surrounding Mimico Creek west of Islington Ave, north of Dundas St W., east of Renforth Dr. and south of Eringate Dr. and Princess Margaret Blvd.

The first "Public Open House" is scheduled for Thursday September 4, 2008 from 6:30 to 8:30 at Burnamthorpe Collegiate Institute, 500 The East Mall (Gymnasium).

Link to City of Toronto's city wide web page about the issue

Public information slides [PDF file]

Posted By David & Robert

East to West Move - Beach west?

A young couple who previously owned a small house in the 'Beach' on Toronto's east end have purchased this house on a large lot in Mimico (the new Beach west?). They'll do very well selling in the elevated real estate market of Queen east and will leverage that profit to their advantage by improving their new home in its up and coming area...smart. Look for an update when they inevitably pull down and rebuild the front porch.

Posted By David

Sha Sha organic bread co. - keeps it for the community

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Sha Sha organic bakery has a factory store just down the street from it’s bakery that opened a few months ago. Within the bakery store they also operate a café. Having a outlet store off the Queensway is all very nice. Their products can be pretty good, but look at the street name. Straight from the 50’s, Plastic Ave housed a complete set of industrial factories though the 50’s to 90’s. Most of the former industrial lots in the area have been populated by big box retail and other non – manufacturing firms. Sha Sha has  kept the street in a manufacturing sector. The city should award them.

Oh yes there is a small 3M building on the street, but it looks like a distributor office not a place where they make things.

follow-up, Mimico Waterfront: Phase 1 building demo

Soon these lone pines won't look like paper weights holding down the end of a green rug.

The demolition of these nondescript storefronts on Old Mimico's Lakeshore Blvd West is part of the completion of Phase 1 of the new waterfront park. Visitors and passerby will find here an inviting entreaty to the waterfront which will connect the waterfront to the street in fact and in feeling.

Posted By David

Lakeshore mardi gras August 8-9-10 2008

Lakeshore Mardi Gras is in the heart of Etobicoke-Lakeshore - A musical and family friendly celebration beginning Friday evening and going on all weekend at Colonel Samuel Smith Park at Lakeshore Blvd. West and Kipling Avenue.

Events

Main Stage Colonel Samuel Smith Park

Friday

6:30 to 7:30	Ronnie and The Jets
8:00 to 9:30	Downchild

Saturday

Noon - 1pm	Dinny's Dixieland All-Stars
1:30-2:30pm	The Three Dad's
3-4pm	Spider Jones
4:30-5:30pm	Danny Marks
6-7pm	Johnny Max
7:30-9pm	Glass Tiger!

Sunday

Noon - 1pm	The Silverleaf Jazz Band
1:30-2:30pm	Uptown Express
3-4pm	Chuck Jackson and The All Stars
4:30-6pm	Paul James

Kipling Ave Toronto, Glass Container Plant closing

Glass vessels entering a Lehr

Picture Credit - junctioneer

Owens-Illinois, Inc is closing it's Kipling Ave Plant in West Toronto totally on Sept 30 '08. This is a huge loss of manufacturing jobs in West Toronto.  Yet it is even more of a complete loss of a type of manufacturing that will NOT return to West Toronto - with all it's mid and highly skilled jobs. Glass container manufacturing is an expensive business to set up a plant for production, and a costly price sensitive business to run. Once this glass plant is dismantled it will not likely ever be rebuilt especially in West Toronto. This plant which used to be the Consumers Glass plant before Owens-Illinois, Inc purchased it, is one of the last plants in West Toronto that required a highly trained and carefully skilled large workforce. The tumble down effect on suppliers such as automation and mechanical services companies will be great, as this manufacturing type requires a lot of maintenance.

This is an old plant and the company must have had a difficult time maintaining it, although it would be much better for West Toronto to retain this plant, the company will still operate a new facility in Brampton.

Now that land is gone, there will be probably be one or two years of decommissioning and land use studies.  Following that, will be a probable sale, perhaps for condos, light industrial, or townhouse tract housing.

Posted by Robert

Mimico Waterfront: Phase 1 opens - press scrum coverage

Its a perfect day in the neighbourhood!

A variety of Mimico residents, politicians and local activists are celebrating the opening of Phase 1 of Mimico's new waterfront park until 5pm today. Several acres of park (recent landfill) and boardwalk are now officially open after two years of construction.

Although no money is yet earmarked for Phase 2 of the waterfront project, apparently the primary obstacle is not, money to do the construction but rather, two property owners who are unwilling to sell or otherwise allow the city to connect the paths and park land that Phase 2 requires.  Hopefully these owners will seek to ingratiate themselves with Torontonians rather than force them to raise some exorbitant fee to expropriate these lands.

Posted By David

a bigger stick - Mimico Garbage issues

For many years the city has been encouraging apartment and condo dwellers and the owners of these buildings to engage with the city's wider waster diversion (recycling) programs.  Building owners were weaned off incineration over 20 years ago and were then encouraged to step up recycle efforts. Nevertheless, many residents have never taken up the torch of recycling and treat as a birth-right, the ability to drop it down the shoot and forget about it.

This disengagement is now very evident in mixed residential communities where buildings and their residents who have not taken recycling seriously now have that problem compounded by having their garbage collection reduced from two days a week, to one, depending on the number of units, or even to bi-weekly if under 9 units. The mess this causes at street level can then create a toxic relationship among the single family home dwellers, the landlords of these buildings and the city for not dealing with this and instead throwing away the carrot in favor of pay-for-use, a bigger stick.

Posted By David

21 Primrose Ave., Mimico: Where do the low incomers go?

A casual passerby might be surprised to find out that this house with good street presence on a quiet tree lined street was a rooming house. Listed for $525 000 and recently sold to a contractor for $485 000 this house will likely be gutted and converted back to a single family dwelling.

This is part of the ongoing transformation of Mimico and neighbourhoods like it, where quasi-illegal, multi unit, low income housing is converted back to single family use, In this real estate market it is actually worth it to a small contractor/developer to buy a house for 485k, gutted it, and reno the entire interior to sell for profit.

The family with money that moves in will suit the neighbours but where do the previous low income renters go?

Posted by David

Eating out in Mimico

Cafe du Lac, a new restaurant on 2350 Lake Shore Blvd. W. has, in little over a month, become a popular spot. Despite Corey Mintz's (http://www.thestar.com/living/article/460817) review which seemed dedicated to the novelty and folly of eating the Quebec bistro inspired poutine, one might instead appreciate a very well prepared Steak and Frites or Grilled Salmon as was recently enjoyed from the Saturday night prix fix menu. Even if you don't live in the area, you don't have to "schlep" out to south Etobicoke, decompress on the GO train and  enjoy a 15 minute walk from Mimico Station to the restaurant through Old Mimico.

The opening of an interesting new restaurant in Mimico is exciting but there are several existing local spots that have been providing consistently good and affordable meals that are popular among locals. It would be rare to find more than one or two other couples in Thai Delight but that's only because they are much more popular for take-out/delivery. At 170 The Queensway, Thai Delight is directly across the street from the Food Terminal, has a comfortable dining area, a varied menu with several very good Thai style curries and appetizers.

Posted by David

South beach condos and lofts at Parklawn and Lakeshore

Huge is only part of the story regarding this new condo development, situated on land where once sat a cold cream plant  which was converted to industrial rental units and at one time -- ten years ago a haven for a few small designer workshops this is a huge change and one of the last big sites for a project as big as this one.

South beach condos and lofts

...is a mix of residential and retail uses uncommon to a development in this area - most of the condos to the east on the old motel lands do not have retail other than a small tuck shop.  Presently their site lacks floor plans and other details such as the project team. Although they have converted the old fruit distrubutor to the sales showroom.  Floor plans would seem something that should be up right away, otherwise what can you picture you are getting for the asking price?

Posted by Robert

Relaxed Quebec Style Bistro - Old Mimico opening in June

Picture credit - David 2008

New eatery Cafe du Lac Old Mimico opening in June

relaxed Quebec Style Bistro

The renaissance of Lakeshore Rd  In Old Mimico continues with the upcoming opening of this new restaurant. I hope to report favorably on the quality of food preparation but before it even opens we're happy for the addition of almost anything other than donut stands and dollar stores.

cafe du lac

posted by David