Condo wars heat up in Vaughan's new downtown as developers reach skyward

Yorkregion.com
April 13, 2017
By Adam Martin-Robbins

The condo wars are heating up in Vaughan.

Developers, it appears, are vying to see who can build the tallest residential tower in the city’s emerging downtown core, a.k.a. the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC).

Steve Gupta, chair and CEO of Gupta Group, threw down the gauntlet in January revealing plans for two 50-plus-storey towers, dubbed lcona Condominiums, on Hwy. 7 at the Hilton Garden Hotel site.

His proposed 51- and 53-storey buildings, topped with all-season “sky lounges,” far outstripped anything proposed at the time.

But on Tuesday, Mitch Goldhar, SmartReit and CentreCourt Developments unveiled plans for a 55-storey tower, dubbed Transit City, in the area known as SmartCentres Place, currently home to big box retailers and the KPMG office tower.

“Now it’s time, as part of the development of the vision of this new city downtown, to incorporate some residential (development), to incorporate the thing that will give it a soul, a soul being the people that will live here, that will soon call this place their home,” Goldhar said during a news conference Wednesday.

Gupta predicted this would happen, when he first revealed his lofty plans.

“One builds something and the other one tries to beat it, that’s how development goes,” he said. “It’s really great for the area.”

At this juncture, it’s uncertain just how high developers will be able to go.

John Mackenzie, Vaughan’s deputy city manager of planning and growth management, said a lot depends on what NavCanada allows given the area’s proximity to Pearson International Airport.

SmartCentres Place has plenty of room for more soaring towers.

The 100-acre master-planned community - bounded by Hwy. 400, Jane Street, Portage Parkway and Hwy. 7 - is one of the biggest mixed commercial-residential projects in Canada.

Transit City, projected to open in 2020, is the just first of several residential developments planned for the area, which will also include three-storey townhomes.

It will have 553 units and a lobby that boasts a 1,500-square-foot buca bar, providing refreshments morning through evening, and a 4,500-square-foot buca restaurant.

There are many other amenities nearby including a nine-acre park running east-west through SmartCentres Place.

In fact, that’s where the planning for this new community started, Goldhar said.

“After you consider it, you realize the thing that makes great city centres great are not actually the buildings, it’s the open spaces,” he said.

Transit City also stands next door to a 220,000-square-foot office tower, anchored by professional services firm PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) Canada, featuring a 100,000-square-foot YMCA recreation centre, plus a public library.

And it’s directly adjacent to an inter-regional bus terminal, with a pedestrian connection to the Viva Bus Rapid Transit along Hwy. 7 and the Spadina subway through an underground pathway.

Of course, it’s the pending arrival of the subway, scheduled to open by Dec. 31, that is driving the area’s rapid redevelopment.

“In a sense, the table has been set for an extraordinary urban lifestyle, that is transit connected, in this location,” said Donald Schmitt of Diamond Schmitt Architects, which designed Transit City.