Mod Developments was called in late last year by Montez Corp. to help with a project to redevelop the north-west corner of Church and Wellesley Streets.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail
Walking Toronto’s streets with developer Gary Switzer is a crash course in city building. Missed opportunities, retail barriers that could easily be removed, bad placement of building services, and, of course, the good things that make for dynamic and interesting streetscapes. All of these and more come up during our short walk to the intersection of Church Street and Wellesley Street East.
For the uninitiated, this crossroads has been the rainbow-coloured, beating heart of the city’s Gay Village for six decades (or longer, depending on the source). Home to the 519 Community Centre (opened 1975), the accidental meeting place known as “The Steps” (demolished 2004), the oldest surviving LGBTQ2S bookstore in the world, Glad Day, and the logical place to locate Canada’s first gay-focused radio station, Proud FM, in 2007 (off air in 2023). It’s the go-to destination for people-watching, drag brunches, good food, and, during Pride Month, a tourism hot spot like no other.
This heritage makes the semi-derelict north-west corner difficult to gaze upon. The last time an operating business graced the old brick pile at 552 Church St. was 2016, when Novacks Rexall Drugstore dispensed pharmaceuticals and wisdom in equal measure. Along Church to the north, the two-storey, curtain-walled mid-century modern building has seen better days. A Google Streetview search of years past shows fully occupied retail a decade ago. Today, there are big gaps in that once-flashing smile. West along Wellesley Street it’s a similar story: The little barber shop at No. 66 is gone, and so too is the nails and hair salon in the free-standing building on the other side of Dapper Lane.
A rendering of Mod Developments’ proposed building.Mod Developments
Which makes one-quarter of this beating heart in need of a transplant. Plans to inject fabulousness in the form of retail and residential have been around for some time, but, says Mr. Switzer, some have been rather uninspired. “The previous scheme had this horrible landscaping; a bunch of oval planters with trees,” he says. “What we’re looking at is a really lush boulevard, but then enough area to put sidewalk cafés.”
The severely step-backed residential/retail building that had been approved (in principle), he continues, had a lot of wasted gross floor area, such as the 700-square-foot suite “with one little window”; the outdoor amenity that consisted of only a “light well in the middle”; and a 7,000-sq.-ft. street-level commercial space with “a big curve” that made it unrentable except to Big Box retailers.
Mr. Switzer and his very successful Mod Developments – responsible for the well-regarded Waterworks Food Hall, Massey Tower and Five St. Joseph – were called in late last year by property owner Montez Corp., who had partnered with and provided capital to a different development manager (which has since gone bankrupt). They found themselves with not only an unworkable plan, but a bad case of inertia.
“[Mod] only started in October, but I’ll tell you that it has made more progress on this application than we probably have in five years,” says Montez senior vice-president of development Christian Kieller. “It was a bad design,” he admits. “But we’re capital guys; we’re not really the design team.”
When Mod came on board, Mr. Kieller explains, they not only identified the problems, they told him to dump the old scheme in favour of a completely new one. So, thanks to Donald Schmitt (of Diamond Schmitt Architects), the meandering residential step-backs facing Church Street were replaced with a simpler, straight-up-and-down tower that faces the much more height-friendly Wellesley Street, and a new, very handsome retail component that allows for mom-and-pop businesses.
Mod Developments’ new plan includes a retail component allowing for mom-and-pop businesses.Mod Developments
“I went to New York last summer,” says Mr. Switzer, pausing under an umbrella being pelted with ice-rain to sip a takeout coffee. “520 Fifth Avenue – they’re doing some amazing thing. And you come back here, and [I’m thinking] nobody knows how to do proper retail! A strip of glass across the whole thing, and then you tack a sign on it? That’s not how you do it!”
Instead, here is a multiunit, six-storey, brick podium featuring gently arched, double-height openings at the sidewalk to allow for creative retail. Clad in hand-laid brick, Mr. Schmitt’s design will bring warmth and energy to the corner (and add a swimming pool to the roof!) It matches, in height and massing, the heritage building at 64 Wellesley St. E., which will be absorbed into the project. Designed by James Edward Harris Paisley, the 1931 buff brick, Georgian Revival building will, should this scheme get built, serve as the entrance to the residential portion of the complex, while also tucking some of the 431 rental units behind its heritage façade.
And there’s the rub: since this is a new scheme, new approvals from the City of Toronto must be obtained. And while that should be a slam dunk, one never knows, says Mr. Kieller: “We do have a path forward, we’ve met with the city, everybody’s on side with the application … [but] you never know until you get the rubber stamp on the page.”
This space doesn’t usually cover projects until shovels hit the ground, or, better yet, when there is something to see and touch. But this one, I think, is different. It’s good city building, in an already great neighbourhood, and by a company that cares deeply about the city.
“I think Mod is the gold standard of development,” finishes Mr. Kieller. “There are a lot more well-known groups out there that aren’t nearly as good.”