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21 January 2008

Joining the Two Simcoe Streets

Toronto Ontario - After decades of lying barren and vacant, one of the prime areas of undeveloped land adjacent to the city core is on the verge of rapid development, with the extension of a new road under the Union Station rail yard.
 
About mid-year, the road through a recently completed tunnel will be opened to traffic, extending Simcoe Street, which in the 19th century ended at the Lake Ontario shore at Front Street, back to its historic waterside terminus.
 
The cost of the $45-million project is being shared between the city and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, the company that owns the historic Royal York Hotel across from Union Station, said John Bryson, the official in charge of bridges at the Toronto Transportation Department.
 
Fairmont's obligation to build the tunnel dates back to the 1980s, when the city first wrestled with the fate of the railway lands, the large swaths of waterfront owned by Canada's two national railways who a century earlier made a place for railroads in Toronto by filling in a large part of the harbour.
 
Through its landholding company, CPR agreed to finance a tunnel that would open up its rail lands and the obligation was passed on when it turned its downtown landholding over to Fairmont, a company created out of Canadian Pacific Hotels.
 
Some of the land south of the rail yard has been sold, while Fairmont still retains part of it, said the company's spokesman Mike Taylor.
 
"The construction of the tunnel was to get into that land," Mr. Taylor said.
 
Although the agreement to build has been in place since 1983, construction did not start until last year.
 
City officials said that two factors were responsible for the 25-year delay:  the timing was a commercial decision by Fairmont, and once the developer decided to go ahead, it took time to get all the necessary approvals, including a 2005 rail-safety clearance by the Federal Transportation Agency.
 
City traffic officials are still studying what changes they will make in the flow of Simcoe Street, which currently is one-way southbound between Queen Street and Front Street, where it ends.
 
While they expect a portion of it will have to be turned into a two-way street, they said it is not likely Simcoe will be a two-way street all the way north from Front to Queen.
 
The commercial climate for the development of the lands bounded by York Street, the extended Simcoe Street, the rail yard, and the Gardner Expressway, has changed dramatically since CP first signed its agreement with the city.
 
To the east, Air Canada Centre has been built, and a mixed-use development, Maple Leaf Square, is being built in front of it. To the west, lies the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and the Roundhouse. And the city has built Bremner Boulevard, a city street running east-west from York Street to Spadina Ave. across the tract.
 
While Fairmont still owns one piece of the tract - Mr. Young would not say what the company might do with it - other sites have been sold to heavyweight operators.
 
Cadillac-Fairview and Lanterra developments, partners in Maple Leaf Square, bought a major site on the west side of York Street, across from their current project.
 
The Conservatory Group of Markham, which is just finishing the Infinity Condos on the south side of Bremner, bought an adjacent site on the south side of Grand Trunk Crescent, a street named after an early railway.
 
And on the northwest corner of Bremner and York, BCIMC Realty Corp, which is controlled by public-sector pension plans in British Columbia, is building a 26-storey office-tower.
 
Get ready for gridlock at Bathurst bridge this fall.
 
While the extension of Simcoe Street under the rail yards this summer will make it easier for traffic between the lakefront and the city core, the relief will not last long.
 
This fall, after the CNE is over, Bathurst Street south of Front Street will be closed for about a year, while the bridge over railway lines is taken down and replaced.
 
City traffic officials said that new bridge will be wider than the old, with a dedicated roadway for street cars as well as two lanes of traffic, bike lanes, and sidewalks.
 
While the new bridge is being built, the city will also build a new intersection on the south side to link Fort York Boulevard and Bremner Boulevard, which is being extended from Spadina Avenue to Bathurst.
 
 
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