Resistance Is Futile
Like it or not, big-box chains are migrating downtown. Instead of mounting protests, urbanites should embrace the monster-retail movement By Philip Preville
Box populi: on front lawns and in store windows along
Queen East, Leslieville residents show their opposition
to the SmartCentre development
Image credit: John Cullen
A 10-minute drive from the financial district and two minutes south of trendy Queen Street East, there’s an urban pocket crying out for redevelopment. Ever since the eastern leg of the Gardiner Expressway—which ran from the DVP to Leslie—was torn down in 2001 at a cost of $34 million, we’ve neglected the industrial landscape that was left behind. As a result, the streets of Leslieville all end at Eastern Avenue, where a couple of kilometre-long “super-blocks” keep the neighbourhood cordoned off from the waterfront. Some 70,000 cars a day use Eastern and Lake Shore as express routes; they remain forbidding to anyone on two feet or two wheels. Surely this is not what we tore down the Gardiner for.
In the heart of the super-blocks, where a tannery and an ironworks factory once stood, lies Toronto Film Studios, a 12-acre complex that for almost two decades has served as the primary production facility for the city’s film and television industry. It’s one of the reasons the neighbourhood was branded the Studio District. The complex is scheduled to close at the end of the year, when business will shift a kilometre southwest to the much-ballyhooed mega-studio called Filmport. In its place, the landowner has proposed building a SmartCentre, the first big-box retail outlet to infiltrate downtown. Opposition to the proposal has been fierce, and in this battle, the city has become the tragic protagonist in a parable whose moral is “be careful what you wish for.”
According to the city’s official plan, the area is one of only two remaining “employment districts” within the boundaries of the old city of Toronto, meaning that the area is reserved for industry. The other is Liberty Village, where large swaths of land have already been converted to homes and condos. The city, anxious about the declining number of jobs in the core and fearing downtown could become a bedroom community if companies continue to set up shop in the suburbs, insisted upon zero-residential, 100 per cent employment zoning in south Riverdale—which is exactly what SmartCentres is offering.
Tentatively called the Foundry District, SmartCentres’ proposal—a retail complex with 700,000 square feet of commercial space and 1,800 parking spaces—has become the latest hot-button development to go before the Ontario Municipal Board. Fighting the developers are the city, local councillor Paula Fletcher, and a highly motivated residents group, the East Toronto Community Coalition. Barring the advent of a mutual settlement—unlikely, but always a possibility—the OMB hearings will wrap up this month and a decision should be handed down before the year’s end. The fight is yet another grenade lob in that hoary trench war: the city of neighbourhoods versus the city for cars. But it’s also a Freudian psychological conflict on a massive scale, one that exposes a city-wide hypocrisy. Our civic superego tells us to tear down expressways, take transit, walk and cycle more, and otherwise reform and redirect our behaviour in pursuit of the ideal livable, green, healthy city. Meanwhile, deep in our repressed id, we are still running errands in our cars. Though we don’t like to admit it, the majority of us are big-box shoppers.
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The article is well argued, but its conclusions are poles apart from where I live, metaphorically speaking. I commute from my east-end home to downtown by bicycle unless the weather is dodgy, at which time the TTC gets my ticket. I steadfastly refuse to commute by car. I likewise shop by bicycle whenever I can and only darken the doors of a big box store when I bound and gagged and dragged kicking and screaming to it. Toronto does not need and does not want downtown big box stores.
For many summers, I have vacationed on the Bruce Peninsula, I have watched in dismay as big box stores have taken over Owen Sound. This development has essentially destroyed the downtown business district. Many downtown stores are boarded up. Others have gone to secondary outlets such as second-hand clothing stores. What was once a vibrant and charming area is almost a ghost town. The big box development is the single cause of this.
To blame it on shoppers, as the article does, is disingenuous. Profit is the motive -- pure and simple. Walmart is not responding to shopper demands, it is creating demand where none exists, and destroying neighborhoods in the process. Their corporate greed and utter lack of community spirit is scandalous and should have no place in our fair city.
September 19, 2008 | by manager58048410This application for the land on eastern ave takes away from the community. The writer fails to present several integral points in the article.
There are several cases of big box developments decreasing the property value. It increases traffic, pollution and crime in the surrounding area. The Thornhill site is a good example.
People will not spend more money because of this development. People do not leave the city to shop at big box malls. Therefore every dollar spent here, is a dollar less at the surrounding businesses. You redistribute the retail dollars spent. NO net gains.
The neighbourhood is not split. In community meetings this developer was booed off the microphone. There were thousands of letters submitted to the Municipal Board in opposition to this development. There were less then a dozen in favour. There are several dozens of businesses just on queen street who have posted no big box signs in there windows.
This unpaid, active group that opposes this development is directly in sync with this NDP voting , artistic, non car based community that has become desirable for its ambiance and walkability.
Kudos to those who stand up for what they believe. Regardless of the developers endless supply of money. We should join our European counterparts who continue to oppose Walmart and other big box american enterprises into their countries.
It is shameful of the writer to post a picture of a businesswomen, who has served this community since she was young and not include her thoughts and opinions on the matter. She has a great deal to say and contribute, none of which was quoted in this article.
September 22, 2008 | by sadstateaffairsNo, resistance is not futile.
Resistance is the only way to win this battle.
Cheap goods from China and third world countries in big box stores? Send all profits to the US headquarters of the stores?
No thanks. I'd rather do my best to shop local.
I have yet to read anything that convinces me that big box puts as much into the community as it takes out.
Poor article, one sided analysis. Not the Toronto Life magazine of yore with quality investigative journalism.
September 28, 2008 | by digiteyes“Shoppers create retail concepts. If people are ready to change the way they shop, retailers and developers will oblige.” Mitch Goldhar, SmartCentres
Shoppers, and residents of Leslieville and South Riverdale are coping quite nicely with the changes that are being created by small, niche-minded businesspeople all along Queen East. This is the change that we are embracing. A development that will drop 700,000 ( almost the retail space of Sherway Gardens in Etobicoke) anchored by a WalMart that may be a SuperCenter) will completely decimate this locally focused "development".
This is not progress. Almost all the tenants hosted by SmartCentres are massive American category killers, which means their focus is to eliminate any
local competition in their retail segment. This isn't competition, it's retail serial killing.
There is no more interest on the part of SC to pander to the pedestrian in this proposal than any of the other eyesores they've created. The development
on Laird Ave. was sold as being inspired by an Italian Piazza. Please.
The people of East Toronto aren't naive. We know that a wide mix of retail in both grocery and other day-to-day needs is essential to families. We have a
Big Box center that includes Home Depot, Zellers and Winners right in the middle of the community, on a streetcar line, with ample parking. It's called Gerrard Square, and we don't need any more.
We also know that the property is a tough sell, not in a small part because much of it sits on toxic soil, unacceptable for residential development. I'd rather let it sit idle for 5 more years while the city and the owners find a
use that serves sustainable employment ( sorry, but Big Box retail jobs rarely sustain a family, let alone an individual in a downtown community like Leslieville).
This sounds like a puff piece organized by the slick PR firm SC employs to help sell the idea to the fence-sitters. You apparently capitulated. I recommend you read Stacy Mitchell's well-researched and written expose on the subject, titled "The Big Box Swindle".
September 28, 2008 | by timkayWhat a one-sided love letter to the developers, oops I mean article. As someone whom this development will affect dramatically - someone who is not a member of the ETCC or the NDP - I wish you'd looked more deeply into the issues surrounding the opposition to it.
I live 100 metres from this proposed development, on the street where the multi-level car park currently is scheduled to exit. It is a relatively quiet residential street with homes and a school on it that runs one-way north for the block between Eastern and Queen. And despite the current traffic on Eastern, and its propensity to head up my street when Eastern is congested, it's been a lovely place to live.
Now Smart Centres is proposing to exit 10,000 cars a day directly into the neighbourhood, hundreds (perhaps thousands) of which will be headed up my street. Who among us should be subjected to that kind of traffic running through a residential neighbourhood? The air quality in Leslieville is already among the worst in Toronto and now they want to add the exhaust of 10,000 cars a day to it? Unfair and unreasonable. We East Enders deserve to be able to breathe too.
Traffic on Eastern Avenue, which has residences all along it I might add, has already become a nightmare with the introduction of bike lanes along the strip between Leslie and Carlaw - exactly where this development is scheduled to be - and Smart Centres refuses to even discuss making the development exit onto Lakeshore Avenue only. Smart Centres also could not supply an example of ANY of their developments that exit directly into a residential neighbourhood when asked.
Smart Centres is clearly not interested in 'fitting in' to the neighbourhood or adapting to changing shopping behaviours. Within walking distance of this proposed development are four grocery stores (three of which are discount stores so cheap groceries are well within reach), a Canadian Tire, a Home Depot, a Zellers, etc., not to mention the strip of boutiques along Queen E., so there are already plenty of options for discount shoppers. There is NO NEED for this development in this area. What IS needed are good paying jobs, which retail does not provide.
Smart Centres may talk a good game but they're talking out of both sides of their mouths when they say they want the development to attract shoppers who walk, ride bikes or take transit. Why the need for 1800 parking spots then? This development will only bring more cars into the area, increase pollution and create traffic chaos in a residential neighbourhood.
I challenge anyone who supports this development to put themselves in my shoes and ask themselves how THEY'D feel if thousands of cars were being dumped onto their small residential street just so someone other than them could save a couple of bucks at Walmart. Convenience is one thing; quality of life should be far more important.
September 29, 2008 | by EastEnderI don't spend much time in the eastern part of Toronto, but I can say that the big box stores (including the evil Wally World) that moved into the old stockyards have improved the Junction area immensely. There are more shops and services in the area now than there were before, and these retailers are still able to find their niche in spite of Wal-mart.
The big box stores that move into the area will improve visibility of Leslieville to the downtown core. While some may decry the increased traffic, the business owners in the area will benefit from the exposure to more people passing by their storefronts. The ideal would be to have prospective customers walking in the area. But if the choice is to have them drive, or not enter Leslieville at all, then what is the better option?
October 2, 2008 | by TOConI am a temporary resident of Toronto. I moved into Leslieville in February 2011 relocating for a few months from Finland to do research in the intercultural urban public spaces of Toronto. I was reading an article by Ute Lehrer and Thorben Wieditz about gentrification processes and Toronto’s Studio District, and while “googling” some of the references I came across this highly biased article endorsing the big box development in the area. One quick observation: from all the comments above the one and only positive to the article and the big-box-development came from a person who acknowledged the fact that s/he didn’t live in the area or even visited the area often. I on the other hand currently live in the area and one thing that I appreciate about it is its diversity not only regarding its people but also its shops, streets, houses, …but above all I appreciate its pedestrian character (almost pedestrian friendly) in a car-dominated city like Toronto. Why should resistance to the Walmartization of cities be futile… what an oxymoronic one-sided argumentation by Mr Preville. People’s resistance against what they believe threatens their well being can never be futile Mr Preville otherwise any kind of development and progress would be impossible… because contrary to certain profit-above-humanity views, real development is not one-sided, and progress for the good-of-people is one endorsed by people because again contrary to what walmarters think people do know what is best for themselves, and this is not what walmarters often propose to be “common good ” or “unavoidable evil”. I know that the article was published in 2008 but the discussion is always relevant. Resistance is never futile even if we are led to believe so!
March 15, 2011 | by MichailGalanakis