Meanwhile, keeping people in or bringing people to the neighbourhood would provide additional business for local shops and restaurants, and bring additional “eyes on the street” to the area during the day.Īny reconversions would be a slow process, especially given how desirable housing is in the older parts of the city, so this would just be a very small step. Once the pandemic ends, if driving is necessary, there will usually be parking spaces available on nearby streets during the day when some locals drive to their own work. But these buildings are generally also not far from transit. Ideally most employees and customers would be local and be able to walk or bike to these locations. It’s a change that would be relatively subtle, since it would only affect a tiny fraction of the buildings in a neighbourhood. They also have the advantage of potentially being convenient live-work spaces, with living space on the upper floor alternatively, the upper floor could supply a much-needed residential rental unit. But they could be any other kind of commercial use too, whether retail, services, or offices – a barbershop, a lawyer’s office, a coffee shop or specialty store (or a coffee shop and specialty store), a co-working space, maybe even a startup. They probably would not become corner shops again - those still wouldn’t be viable in most cases. Maybe one small nudge towards Toronto as a “15-minute city” could be to designate all of these former corner shops inside neighbourhoods as automatically, as-of-right, eligible to be reconverted to commercial uses. And, as we will see below, there are a fair number of these former commercial properties hidden within neighbourhoods in the older parts of the city. Corner stores that have maintained commercial use all along are grandfathered, but I’m told that once they are converted to residential use, they can’t go back. With the added experience of the pandemic forcing us to stick to our neighbourhoods, the idea of having more of our shopping, services, and workplaces near where we live has become all the more front-of-mind.Ĭurrent zoning, however, prohibits any use other than residential on streets within residential neighbourhoods, pushing all retail, service, and office uses to main streets. Even before the pandemic, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo had begun talking about the “ 15-minute city” where we can live, work, play, study, and shop all within a 15-minute walk. The need to address climate change and congestion, and more recently the sudden reorientation towards working from and shopping near home caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, have stimulated talk about reorienting our lives more closely around the neighbourhood we live in.
But with the advent of widespread car ownership and supermarkets, many of them declined and were converted to become purely housing. Once upon a time these were the first stop for regular goods and sometimes services, not to mention local news and gossip, for nearby residents who could walk to them daily. One of the elements of Toronto’s everyday vernacular architecture I’ve always found interesting is the former corner shops embedded within residential neighbourhoods in the older parts of Toronto.
Run your business in an amenity rich community and lively neighbourhood filled with spirited & creative people.Like so many people during the current pandemic lockdown, I’ve started to get to know my neighbourhood much more closely on daily walks for exercise from my home. Harrison reimagines living and working in Marda loop with a boutique collection of 51 residential 1 & 2 bedroom apartments and 12 urban workspaces. We’re excited to harness our energy to support local businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs to thrive at Harrison by Sarina. We design and build modern, inspired, connected spaces to support our inner-city neighbourhoods to thrive as destinations for all Calgarians to live, work and play in. About the Developer: For more than 15 years fueled by a passion for people and community, Sarina Homes has been contributing to our city’s urban landscape.
And, with the neighbourhood set to benefit from the city’s $31M investment as part of the Main Streets redevelopment program it’s business and retail district will continue to grow and evolve. The walkable community is teeming with 150+ businesses, restaurants and artisan cafés.
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