Oxford Properties Group has announced its plans to add apartment buildings to the Yorkdale Shopping Centre and two other major commercial complexes in Toronto. Adapting some of this mall parking lot space for much needed housing will greatly benefit the community.
An article in Storeys states that the Yorkdale Shopping Centre is the best and most valuable mall in the Greater Toronto Area and Oxford Properties Group is also planning to add homes to the Square One Mall in Mississauga and the Scarborough Town Centre. Yorkdale will be the last mall to break ground.
The new additions will be predominantly rental units and appeal to a wide array of potential residents.
Oxford's plans are to jump on the vibrant mixed-use neighbourhood bandwagon and invite future residents to live where they shop and dine. Malls now have many fine dining places. The mall is becoming a hot bed for condo developments throughout North America especially in regions where developable land is scarce.
These new residential additions to malls reflects the growing trend of vertical and centralized communities and a decreased reliance on automobiles.
AWS for WP states that the not-so-distant future may not only have on-site housing but also parks, office spaces and other amenities typical of a modern era mega-development.
"We're starting to go vertical and add apartment buildings to each of the above mentioned malls. I can assure you that what you see today is not what they are going to look like over the next decade or two."
President of Oxford Properties Group | Michael Turner
The plot has already been broken on a new community around Square One in Mississauga, where Oxford is transforming 130 acres of property around the existing shopping center into an "18 million square foot master-planned neighborhood for mixed use in the future."
The project will result in the addition of 18,000 housing units to the Square One property next door with enough office and retail space to accommodate a community of about 35,000 people. Even though Square One condominiums are not yet built, they are already for sale and start at around $700,000.
Oxford's plans for a similar proposal at Scarborough Town Center will include 36 new residential towers in a height from 20 to 65 storeys.
All the on-site parking that is there now will be replaced by:
- Pedestrian promenades
- Public parking and parcels
- More than 1,300 custom-built rental units master-planned in partnership with Toronto City
The Scarborough Town Center area will be completely unrecognizable if the city approves the plan that will include about 8,000 housing units.
Yorkdale Shopping Center is one of Oxford's crown jewels and their plans to rent the towers are still in the early stages. The city is in the process of choosing between three potential proposals for remodeling the Yorkdale Mall and its immediate vicinity, but all three include the addition of:
- Retail space
- Hotel space
- Office space
- Residential properties in height from 2 to 28 floors
It will take many years to complete these major projects. City officials have set a timeline of "20 + years" on the Yorkdale redevelopment, which will be built in phases once it is approved.
Loss of business caused by the pandemic and competition from e-commerce retailers have really hurt North American malls and put quite a few into bankruptcy.
This idea of housing at mall sites has been seized by other mall owners with two primary motives: squeezing more value from the properties and bringing prospective retail customers closer to the action. It's not just Oxford Properties that is building on mall parking lots. Others include:
- Dufferin Mall
- Cloverdale Mall
- Galleria Mall
- Agincourt Mall
According to the Financial Post, the Yorkdale mall will be the last of the Toronto area mall sites to break ground due to the fact that it is situated in a densely packed neighbourhood that is squeezed between two major highways.
Yorkdale had sales of $1,964 per square foot in 2019, the last year the Retail Council of Canada ranked the country's malls before the pandemic. That compares with $1,108 per square foot for Square One and $870 per square foot for Scarborough Town Centre.
DataBid is currently reporting on these projects:
Mega City Mixed Use Development at Yorkdale Shopping Centre - (0014010318)
The Strand Mixed Use at Square One - Mississauga - (0023012820)
