The transformation of Etobicoke in west Toronto continues with the news that EllisDon’s development division is investing heavily in the new city centre, announcing plans for four condo towers.
The new development, to be called the Arcadia District, was launched earlier this month. The towers will range from 12 to 42 storeys containing over 1,300 suites in total and varying in size from 380 to 1,080 square feet.
EllisDon vice-president of developments Chris Smith explained the firm’s construction division had been working on the Kipling transit hub in Etobicoke and so the firm had daily reminders of the market potential for a redevelopment project.
“We’ve been evaluating ways to find the right site,” said Smith. “That’s the place that we want to be.
“We do see this as the first master-planned community in the area to really start that front end of the curve of development and the change in Etobicoke civic centre.”
Chronicling its potential, Smith noted as a new multimodal hub, Kipling is now second in size only to Union station; the Etobicoke city centre has been designated as an urban growth centre with tens of thousands of residential units slated to come on board in the next 10 years; the road system has been redefined including the reconfiguration of the Six Points interchange incorporating new cycling and pedestrian pathways; and the city is pouring significant public money into the district with plans for a new community recreation centre, civic square, non-profit day care and new public library.
The Etobicoke civic centre has been overlooked in the market until recently, Smith said. And so mid last year EllisDon purchased a 15,000-square-metre site on Fieldway Road, near Bloor Street and Kipling Avenue.
The firm has an ambitious timetable with Smith saying they are aiming for groundbreaking as early as next year. Discussions with the city are going well, he said.
“They’re supportive of their view of acceptable density in the area,” said Smith. “We’re obviously doing our best to move this along. We were able to achieve what I think will be the largest floorplate in the Etobicoke civic centre without having to go to the OLT (Ontario Land Tribunal), which I think is a great sign of collaboration between ourselves and the city.”
Architecture is by BDP Quadrangle and interior design by Figure3. The four towers will feature 62,000 square feet of shared amenity space, billed as the Arcadia Club, 14,000 square feet of retail space and a new 26,000-square-foot park on the east end of the site.
The project will be connected to a geothermal energy system.
The Arcadia District will be one of the first developments to launch in the community with much more to come — a combined 25,000-plus units have already been submitted for development, Smith said.
Smith said Tower C, the second tallest tower, will be the first built. He’s confident interest rates are going in the right direction to make the financing for the project work, he said.
“We are going to be watching interest rates carefully to see how that impacts the project. But we are planning to launch early starting mid next year.
“I think we’ll be in a different interest rate environment at that time. Fingers crossed…We hope right now we are at the peak of the interest rate hike cycle already.”
In general, Smith said, the development industry is facing a list of challenges, with the inflationary environment of the past two years and high interest rates affecting both builders and buyers. Building is more expensive, which makes addressing Ontario’s extreme shortage of housing more complicated, he said.
“We’ve all heard some variation of, ‘we need to build 150,000 homes a year and no problem, and we’ll address affordability,’” Smith said. “Anyone can pull up their computer and look that the industry is barely cracking 100,000 and the industry is bursting at the seams.”
Workforce shortages and the imperative to decarbonize are two more pressures Smith acknowledged. It all leads to the need for developers like EllisDon to continue to reinvent how they build homes, he said, with the Arcadia project shaping up to be a showcase for EllisDon’s capabilities in sustainable building and construction innovation.
“The great thing is that we…have an entire group dedicated to looking at new sustainable ways to build,” he said, noting a partnership with Dialog to develop and implement more mass timber construction.
“For Arcadia specifically, AI is being used as a testing ground as far as the analysis goes for what we can put in and what will work right now.”
BIM and digital twinning will also be considered as part of the innovation package for Arcadia, Smith said.
“Geothermal is obviously the big one that is going to allow us to put a more sustainable view on the operations of this building,” he added.
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