Plans for Vaughan's Assembly Park taking shape

Torontosun.com
Dec. 6, 2021
Paul Barker

The four-tower complex will span 41, 48, 55 and 59 storeys and be home to 4,000 residents

What started out at as a mega suburban retail and commercial initiative in what is now part of Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC) is quickly turning into something drastically different in and around land first purchased by British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) in the mid-1990s.

Located east of Hwy. 400 and situated between Hwy. 7 and Hwy 407, the location which includes the soon-to-be demolished AMC theatre complex, is being converted into a residential complex called Assembly Park that will be rich in the one element any downtown area needs to have -- available public transit.

A joint initiative of QuadReal Property Group, which manages BCI’s real estate assets, and Menkes Developments Ltd., plans call for the 84-acre site to be a multiple-phase initiative, which started with a project called Mobilio, a mix of townhouses and three condo buildings that will total 1,148 units once built.

Currently under construction, it is expected to house 2,300 to 2,500 residents and last month, a ground-breaking ceremony took place for Festival, a four-tower complex that will span 41, 48, 55 and 59-storeys in height and be home to 4,000 residents.

There are additional phases either in design or at various levels of approvals with the city and according to Jay Claggett, vice president of development of QuadReal, once Assembly Park is completely developed there will be upwards of 12,000 units that will house a population of between 19,000-23,000 people.

With Mobilio and Festival in construction, the goal now, he says, is to create a sense of community for the new homeowners.

“We started to look at some of our existing and older retail leases where due to COVID-19, a lot of the operators had left,” says Claggett. “We started to envision how we could transform some of that old retail into a temporary community space that would bridge the gap for us for these new residents that we’re bringing into the area.

“There’s not an awful lot of parkland up there right now so what we want to do is build this temporary bridge between where we are now and ultimately the long-term vision, which is going to take 10 to 12 years to build out.”

Plans call for a garden space to be built at the site of the AMC complex as well as several community spaces including The Studios at Assembly Park, which launched this summer, both of which Claggett says are intended to be used by residents until the “permanent community amenities are constructed.”

The Studios contain 10,000 sq. ft. of programmable indoor community space, while The Gardens will contain 1.5 acres of open space, walkways, planting beds and community gardens.

The development’s master plan, meanwhile, calls for the construction of a 17-18-acre municipal park, a full-fledged community centre and a school that will accommodate 600-700 students.

A key component in creating Vaughan’s new downtown core, said Claggett, is the existence of not just a subway station, but also the Viva and Züm rapid transit systems and GO Express service.

“That was the core driver for both the city, the region and ultimately the landowners in this area to define this as Vaughan’s downtown. Vaughan was always created as a city of old communities and -settlements that came together, but it always lacked that heart-and-soul of a city.

“And by bringing all this transit in, it was the fundamental driver that moved us into this vision of creating this downtown. You wouldn’t have this scale and magnitude of a downtown without that transit.”