PHOTOS: Check Out These High Rise Towers Proposed For This Busy Mississauga Intersection

By

Published March 8, 2019 at 4:14 am

cover_photo

For as long as I can remember living in Mississauga, there is this patch of land that has remained vacant with no indication that anything was going to be built on it.

It was lined with a concrete barrier, and strangely enough, a driveway leading up to a patch of empty grass with even a mailbox at the entrance.Many residents and other people may wonder what if anything was going to be done with this land. Well, now they finally have an answer.

This past Monday, the Mississauga Planning and Development Committee was presented with an application for developing on this land at the northeast corner of Hurontario Street and Eglinton Avenue.Located specifically at 91 / 131 Eglinton Avenue East and 5055 Hurontario Street, the site is next to a smaller plaza, where last year an explosion ripped through the Bombay Bhai Indian restaurant. It also includes a Starbucks, Burger Priest and Shoppers Drug Mart.

Other amenities are located across the street at the Mississauga Marketplace where people can go to the LA Fitness, Toys R Us, Swiss Chalet and grocery shop at the Oceans supermarket.

The development application is asking permission to build six condominium apartment buildings with 2,668 units with heights of 28, 33, 35, 40, 40 and 45 storeys. Also being proposed are 14 three storey condominium townhomes, 4 three storey common element condominium townhomes and a public park.

If completed, the condos are supposed to look like this, as per this artistic rendition.Here’s another shot of the site plan showing the layout of the six condos and public park.The planner for the applicant, Glen Schnarr and Associates, showed a computer simulation video of what the series of condos would look like in proportion to the current streetscape.And here’s a shot from that video showing the park’s position within the series of condos.


In order to integrate these buildings, a plan for a subdivision has also been submitted to create eight blocks including one for the park, two for the development and the proposed extension of Thornwood Drive through Eglinton Avenue to Sorrento Drive, as well as reserves and the widening of Eglinton.

But the planner indicated that this development is only for residential as it stands and does not include ground level commercial units, although they are willing to reexamine the zoning bylaws to put in commercial frontage if necessary. A resident came forward later during the meeting and expressed concern over that, saying there needed to be some kind of street level activity to make the development more enjoyable, such as cafes and restaurants.

Ward 5 Coun. Carolyn Parrish, who represents the area, said this development would increase her ward’s contribution to the property tax base while providing easy access to the future Hurontario LRT. But she did raise the matter of traffic issues concerning the thoroughfare on the site that could lead to people cutting through it to bypass the busy Hurontario-Eglinton intersection.

Parrish also asked the planner if some kind of basketball court could be developed on the site, so it could take some of the pressure off the Frank McKechnie Community Centre which contains a court for usage by nearby residents, as well as hoping that the road going through the site connecting Thornwood Drive to Eglinton keeps the name Thornwood.

One other resident came up and said she was concerned over all this high density being put in place, essentially the population of a small town just at this intersection, when there were concerns that the Ford government may cancel the Hurontario LRT project. “I don’t think he (Ford) likes Peel very much,” the woman said.

Parrish assured her that higher density was envisioned for Hurontario and Eglinton “long before the LRT became a speck in anybody’s eye.” But considering that this current provincial government has taken unprecedented steps on a number of issues, it is not far fetched to suggest that cancelling a major infrastructure project such as the Hurontario LRT in Mississauga is completely off the books.

The possibility of drivers using the future thoroughfare to bypass the always busy Hurontario and Eglinton intersection is conceivable. If they are coming westbound along Eglinton, they could turn into the future extension into Thornwood Drive and access Hurontario via Nahani Way.

Coun. Parrish is adamant that should not happen, but predicting the future behaviour of drivers is like trying to accurately predict the next Lotto 649 numbers.

With this area already seeing massive condo developments on the other side of Hurontario anyway, combined with the still anticipated LRT, if Mississauga is going to find a “node” to do higher density, this spot is it.

insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising