W.D. Lighthall
Special to the Star

The west-Toronto neighbourhood known as the Junction has experienced little of the rush to build condominiums seen elsewhere in the city, but that may be about to change.

Nexxt Development Corp. wants to build three condominium towers and a mix of townhouses and retail uses on a 1.2-hectare site located east of Keele St., just north of Dundas St. W.

Nexxt Development's plan would see construction of 635 residential units on the currently unused site, once home to a Canadian Tire store.

The proposed condominium towers are 22-, 20- and 10-storeys tall. Each building would rise from a podium of three or four storeys. Underground parking, up to 20 townhouses, a 0.2-hectare park and a safety wall separating the site from the railway tracks to the north round out the project.

Kevin Rachman, a project co-ordinator for Nexxt Development, said the podiums at the base of the towers are designed to give the project a look and feel at street level similar to the three- and four-storey buildings of the Junction. "Part of our design is to recreate that Dundas Street pedestrian experience with our site," Rachman said. With the condominium planned for the western edge of the site, retail uses would front directly onto Keele St. Rachman said that will serve the larger aim of connecting the project with the streets of the Junction, located a short block to the south.

Dave McKillop, City of Toronto manager of community planning, west-district, said a number of factors make the site desirable for residential redevelopment.

"It has frontage on an arterial road and is well served by transit. It's very visible and it's one of the sites we identified some time ago as an anchor in the Junction-area revitalization plans." McKillop said.
" The retail use, the townhouse proposal and even the apartment use is consistent with what we see as being reasonable use for that site."
A preliminary report on the project goes before the Humber York Community Council April 1. If approved, additional public meetings will be held before a final report on the project goes to city council to consider.

"If all goes well, we could open a sales office in the fall," Rachman said.
Since acquiring the site in early 2002, Nexxt has been consulting with Junction-area residents and merchants on the project's final size and design.
In response to concerns with the project's density, Rachman said the site's proposed density was reduced to 513,200 square feet from an initial 590,000 square feet.

Rachman said area residents, merchants and politicians made it clear that when it comes to the project's design, the expectation is for something superior.

"We are working to create signature buildings in the Junction. We need to draw people into a revitalized Junction and Dundas St. W." Hilary Bell, a member of the Dundas West Residents Association, said there is concern among local residents with the volume of traffic the proposed development would generate. While the west side of the development extends to Keele St., two residential streets- Heintzman St. and Indian Grove- terminate along the eastern portion of the site. "Those streets close to it are short small streets," says Bell. "Residents are kind of panicked about the traffic." But Bell said a study indicated traffic generated by the development would not overwhelm the neighbourhood. "Traffic is still within the city standard for those streets," she said.

Local merchants see the development as a boost to the vitality of the Junction, which is undergoing revitalization after years of civic neglect and secondary status to the nearby shopping districts of Roncesvalles Ave. and Bloor West Village.

While acknowledging that a few merchants in the Junction don't approve of the proposed development, "Overwhelmingly, merchants are in favour of the development," said Piera Pugliese, chair of the Junction Gardens Business Improvement Area.

"Not only are we in favour of it, we are really excited about it," said Pugliese, whose family owns the popular Vesuvio Pizzeria & Spaghetti House in the heart of the Junction.

"Having that many more people in the neighbourhood, we would need that many more services," Pugliese said. He notes that while the commercial vacancy rate in the Junction has declined in the last five years, some stores remain vacant along Dundas St. W.