The quickly gentrifying Dupont strip may be in for a big box store.
The developer that bought the Leal industrial equipment rental outfit (previously an A&P)
originally applied to turn the large one-storey building into a multi-retail establishment, sort of an urban strip mall.
But now, says councillor Adam Vaughan, they've found a single retail tenant, and are changing their application.
"You might see something like
Target go in there," Vaughan says. The city has not been told who the prospective tenant is. "It's a concern, because quite clearly, when Loblaws went in [at Christie and Dupont], it has a major impact on the traffic in the neighbourhood."
Vaughan says there is "no planning work" being done at the city due to cutbacks, so he has commissioned a grad class of Ryerson planning students to do the legwork on the area, and submit their material to the city. The north side of Dupont is considered "employment lands," putting strict limitations on the sort of development that can happen there. But the south side is different, and may be more liable to various forms of building.
"We're trying to get a visioning study of the area as it runs from Avenue right across to the top of Ward 19," Vaughan says. "We'd like to do a unified streetscape." But he says "one-off" developments like 555 Dupont, or the
Wynn application for a high-rise apartment complex on the north side at Kendal, currently before the Ontario Municipal Board, "are not giving us a chance to do that."
A public meeting is being held on the subject of the revised application on Tuesday, October 9 from 6pm to 7pm at St. Alban's Boy sand Girls Club at 843 Palmerston Ave., in the second floor library.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Adam Vaughan
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