Elad takes lead on Galleria Mall redevelopment

Theglobeandmail.com
Sept. 6, 2019
Shane Dingman

Developer Elad Canada is now in the driver’s seat for the redevelopment of Toronto’s 20-acre Galleria Mall site at Dufferin and Dupont streets.

Elad, an international real estate company known mainly in Toronto for the Emerald City project across from Fairview Mall, was partnered with downtown condo builder Freed Developments on the new community, but will now move forward with 100 per cent control over the project.

Since it was first announced in 2015 the Galleria project has undergone some changes. It was initially master-planned by Hariri Pontarini Architects and Urban Strategies as a series of curved triangular buildings with a park and community centre. In the plans approved by the City of Toronto over the summer it’s been reshaped now into a more standard set of rectangular towers, the first of those to be constructed is designed by Core Architects.

The final plans include a reshaped Wallace Emerson Park designed by Public Work.

The pricing on the building is in the $1,000 a square foot range: the first tower in the two-tower building has units as small as 493 square feet with prices in the “high $400s,” the largest units will top 1,100 square feet.

The project is smaller than when it was first discussed with the community. There will be eight buildings (the towers range from 35 storeys to 18) and 2,900 condo apartments and 150 affordable rental housing units (5 per cent of the total planned residences).

In its first submission to the city in 2016, the plans pushed for almost 3,400 units and taller towers (one pitched at 42 storeys), which faced pushback from local City Councillor and deputy mayor Ana Bailao, who told The Globe and Mail at the time that it was “completely out of context and the character of the neighbourhood."

The finalized plans include a Perkins & Will design to replace the Wallace Emerson Community Centre with a new 95,000-square-foot building and a reshaped Wallace Emerson Park designed by Public Work, one of the Toronto firms behind the Bentway park under the Gardiner Expressway.