In addition to having an incredible mountain just 12 miles away, the town of Jackson is also a really cool place in its own right. It’s a cowboy town with endless wilderness all around it. But since it’s such a big tourist destination, the town is filled with great restaurants, art galleries, and the obligatory real estate brokerages trying to sell vacation properties.
Here’s what the town looks like from the top of Snow King (the in-town ski mountain). Photo credit: David Stubbs for the New York Times.
But from a land use standpoint, I also find the town really interesting because of its network of fine grain alleys. Here’s a picture of Gaslight Alley. For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you’re probably aware that I’m a big supporter of laneway housing in Toronto. I think it’s a hidden opportunity. It could be another—more intimate—layer to the city.
Today, building a laneway house is virtually a non-starter with the City of Toronto. Whether it’s issues of utilities or the fact that laneways don’t easily accommodate service vehicles (maybe we need smaller service vehicles), the city has a litany of reasons for why they just won’t work.
But I’m absolutely certain that we could figure out solutions to all of the obstacles if we really put our minds to it. It’s not a question of not being able to do it, it’s a question of not wanting to do it.
The Globe and Mail lands in Toronto, located between Front Street and Wellington Street, west of Spadina Avenue, have been in play for quite some time. But since the Globe and Mail confirmed last year that it would be moving its headquarters to a new First Gulf office building on King Street East, the lands opened up as a prime redevelopment opportunity.
Earlier this week I discovered the plans. It’s a new mixed-use neighborhood called The Well. And it’s a partnership between Allied Properties REIT, RioCan and Diamond Corp, with the master plan design being prepared by Hariri Pontarini Architects.
Here are a few photos.
Wellington Street looking east:
Wellington Street looking west:
Laneway looking south into the development site:
And here are some high level stats:
7.7 acre site (Globe and Mail lands)
Encompasses Draper Street, which is a heritage designated street
Approximately 500,000 square feet of retail space
More than 1,000,000 square feet of commercial office space
More than 1,000,000 square feet of residential space
From the early renderings, the project looks incredibly promising. Wellington Street East is a great street, but the south side of it is currently a mess. With a new lining of well designed midrise buildings on it, the street could be spectacular.
I like that there seems to be a focus on creating a fine grain network of streets and laneways. And it’s making me think that this stretch of Wellington could work really well as pedestrian only. Both ends of the street terminate in a park (Victoria Park on the west and Clarence Square on the east), which would make it a really beautiful (dumbbell shaped) urban space.
This is something Toronto doesn’t have today. This could be our opportunity.