Ontario Construction News staff writer
Toronto has marked the completion of the Don Summerville revitalization, transforming a 3.3-acre site at 1070 Eastern Ave. from two aging Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) buildings into a 770-home mixed-use community.
The project was delivered through a five-year redevelopment partnership between the City of Toronto, TCHC, RioCan and Context Development. Where 120 rent-geared-to-income (RGI) units once stood, the new build has multiplied the density more than sixfold with three new buildings containing 120 RGI units, 100 affordable rentals, 183 market rentals and 367 condominiums.
Alongside the residential construction, the community includes 16,000 square feet of ground-level retail space and a Privately Owned Public Space (POPS) intended as an open, publicly accessible gathering area.
Mayor Olivia Chow called the project a model for future infill and revitalization. “Every Torontonian deserves to live in a home that they’re proud of, and in a neighbourhood where they can thrive,” she said at the opening.
“As a result of this revitalization, TCHC and the City have been able to create more than six times more homes on this site than originally existed,” said TCHC president and CEO Sean Baird, comparing the project’s scale compared to the former site.
The residential program integrates different housing tenures. In addition to the RGI and affordable rentals, 50 units are allocated for women and families through a developer–community partnership, and 32 co-operative homes have been included, with 17 RGI and 15 affordable units, some reserved for artists.
For the development team, the project was also an opportunity to reconfigure underused space for higher density while maintaining design sensitivity to the neighbourhood. “We were able to maximize the footprint of two old buildings and a whole lot of unused space to build a new community for hundreds of families,” said Howard Cohen, principal at Context Development.
The new Don Summerville community sits in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood, close to Ashbridges Bay, the Martin Goodman Trail, and major TTC transit routes.
