One of the best things about Toronto in the summer is that it feels like there’s a special event happening almost every day of the week. It would be impossible to go to everything, but one of my favorites is StreetFest at the Beaches Jazz Festival, which is running this week from Thursday (July 24) to Saturday (July 26).
If you’re from Toronto, then you’ve probably been. But if you haven’t been, StreetFest is basically a 2.5 km stretch of Queen Street East in the Beaches that gets closed to traffic so that hundreds of thousands of pedestrians can walk around and listen to jazz music on the street. It’s a lot of fun and I’m told there will be 40 bands this week.
This year TAS has sponsored a tent and so the Kingston&Co Condominiums team will be there to talk to people about our project (and also listen to some jazz music!). I’ll be there on Thursday night (tomorrow) and so if you’re around, come by and say hello. If you can’t find us, send me a tweet.
It’s no secret that TAS is working on a project in the Kingston Rd & Victoria Park area, technically known as Birch Cliff. As a result of this, I’ve been spending time getting to know this neighbourhood as well as the adjacent Upper Beaches area, which I truthfully didn’t know very well before.
As someone who grew up in the west end of Toronto and never lived east of the DVP before, my sense of the place was limited. But I have to say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what a lot of people would simply call Scarborough.
Kingston Road is a thriving main street with lots of great local businesses, as well as a spattering of the usual chains - such as Starbucks - that arguably legitimize the arrival of a neighbourhood. On top of this, the next major block south is Queen Street East and the Beaches neighbourhood.
So to all of my downtown friends, go hop on your bike and check it out.
One of the best things about Toronto in the summer is that it feels like there’s a special event happening almost every day of the week. It would be impossible to go to everything, but one of my favorites is StreetFest at the Beaches Jazz Festival, which is running this week from Thursday (July 24) to Saturday (July 26).
If you’re from Toronto, then you’ve probably been. But if you haven’t been, StreetFest is basically a 2.5 km stretch of Queen Street East in the Beaches that gets closed to traffic so that hundreds of thousands of pedestrians can walk around and listen to jazz music on the street. It’s a lot of fun and I’m told there will be 40 bands this week.
This year TAS has sponsored a tent and so the Kingston&Co Condominiums team will be there to talk to people about our project (and also listen to some jazz music!). I’ll be there on Thursday night (tomorrow) and so if you’re around, come by and say hello. If you can’t find us, send me a tweet.
It’s no secret that TAS is working on a project in the Kingston Rd & Victoria Park area, technically known as Birch Cliff. As a result of this, I’ve been spending time getting to know this neighbourhood as well as the adjacent Upper Beaches area, which I truthfully didn’t know very well before.
As someone who grew up in the west end of Toronto and never lived east of the DVP before, my sense of the place was limited. But I have to say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what a lot of people would simply call Scarborough.
Kingston Road is a thriving main street with lots of great local businesses, as well as a spattering of the usual chains - such as Starbucks - that arguably legitimize the arrival of a neighbourhood. On top of this, the next major block south is Queen Street East and the Beaches neighbourhood.
So to all of my downtown friends, go hop on your bike and check it out.
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
For those of you wondering if/when this will happen in Toronto, here are the key takeaways from this morning: The city is already drafting laneway suite policies specific to Toronto & East York (not the other parts of the city) and they are due to report back to council in Q2-2018. Nothing is 100% certain at this stage, but there’s lots of optimism.
Councillor McMahon delivered this morning’s opening remarks and I was impressed by her deep commitment to laneway suites. I was also impressed by her stance on NIMBYISM, saying that education is important and that we can’t let NIMBYs stop what makes sense for the greater city.
She gave the example of the 6 storey condominium in her ward that faced fierce community opposition a number of years back. If you can’t put a midrise building on a main street in this city, where can you put it?
If you haven’t been to StreetFest before, here are two tips. It gets super busy and traffic is often bad heading in and out of the area. If you have the option of biking there (or riding on someone else’s handlebars), I would highly recommend that.
Also, given how busy it is, I remember it being difficult to find a beer the last time I went – all the restaurants and patios were full. So you may want to consider investing in a CamelBak Pack. We wouldn’t want you getting dehydrated :)
For those of you wondering if/when this will happen in Toronto, here are the key takeaways from this morning: The city is already drafting laneway suite policies specific to Toronto & East York (not the other parts of the city) and they are due to report back to council in Q2-2018. Nothing is 100% certain at this stage, but there’s lots of optimism.
Councillor McMahon delivered this morning’s opening remarks and I was impressed by her deep commitment to laneway suites. I was also impressed by her stance on NIMBYISM, saying that education is important and that we can’t let NIMBYs stop what makes sense for the greater city.
She gave the example of the 6 storey condominium in her ward that faced fierce community opposition a number of years back. If you can’t put a midrise building on a main street in this city, where can you put it?
If you haven’t been to StreetFest before, here are two tips. It gets super busy and traffic is often bad heading in and out of the area. If you have the option of biking there (or riding on someone else’s handlebars), I would highly recommend that.
Also, given how busy it is, I remember it being difficult to find a beer the last time I went – all the restaurants and patios were full. So you may want to consider investing in a CamelBak Pack. We wouldn’t want you getting dehydrated :)