The mas­ter­plan is designed to breathe new life into the now unrec­og­niz­able mid-cen­tu­ry vision for this part of Scar­bor­ough by cre­at­ing an unmis­tak­able sense of place. Fea­tur­ing two pro­posed Eglin­ton Crosstown LRT sta­tions, an exten­sive net­work of bicy­cle, pedes­tri­an, and vehic­u­lar con­nec­tions knits togeth­er the Gold­en Mile Plaza Revi­tal­iza­tion as a new com­mu­ni­ty that embraces its sub­ur­ban con­text while cre­at­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for urban con­nec­tiv­i­ty and impor­tant ameni­ties.

Gold­en Mile cov­ers approx­i­mate­ly 113 hectares of com­mer­cial dis­trict along Eglin­ton Avenue in East Toron­to. It is bound­ed by Vic­to­ria Park Ave to the west, Ash­ton­bee Road and the Hydro Cor­ri­dor (called “The Mead­oway”) to the north, Birch­mount Road to the east, and an irreg­u­lar bound­ary stretch­ing between var­i­ous low-rise res­i­den­tial neigh­bour­hoods to the south. Our plan defines a new prece­dent for the dynam­ic and diverse rede­vel­op­ment of under­uti­lized sub­ur­ban sites and begins with strate­gi­cal­ly relo­cat­ing the valu­able food store, that can­not close to the pub­lic, in order to open the site to new, crit­i­cal north-south con­nec­tions.

Our site is Gold­en Mile Plaza, a 19-acre gate­way to the dis­trict that lies just west of the orig­i­nal indus­tri­al ‘mile’ now ripe for inten­si­fi­ca­tion. The mas­ter plan designs den­si­ty, mass­ing, and detailed pub­lic realms for a sus­tain­able, acces­si­ble, and inclu­sive com­plete com­mu­ni­ty.

The scheme is anchored by a new east-west pub­lic main street, Gold­en Mile Boule­vard, which bends to accom­mo­date the food store foot­print lam­i­nat­ed with fine-grained retail frontage while slow­ing the pat­tern of traf­fic. The mag­net­ic green square is then placed at the cen­tre of the site adja­cent the curv­ing main road inter­sec­tion with a large park.

The pedes­tri­an-ori­ent­ed and retail-focused main street cre­ates a more inti­mate qual­i­ty that sets the tone for the neigh­bour­hood scale of the plan, along­side the arte­r­i­al nature of Eglin­ton Avenue East. New tran­sit stops, which them­selves are sup­port­ed by Pri­vate­ly Owned Pub­lic Spaces (POPS,) are placed along the south side of the site allow­ing for new north-south pedes­tri­an con­nec­tions to The Mead­oway.

As design archi­tects for the two blocks that com­prise phase 1, we imbue the archi­tec­ture with a mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional man­date that also shapes the two podi­ums to mit­i­gate strong winds and max­i­mize light and views to the pub­lic realms, as a pas­sive sus­tain­abil­i­ty strat­e­gy. These cul­mi­nate in a pedes­tri­an-only cen­tral court­yard, dubbed “The Gar­den,” that sits between the two blocks and fea­tures neigh­bour­hood-ori­ent­ed retail spilling out. This phase also hosts 50,000 square feet of com­mu­ni­ty space, and an insti­tu­tion­al space for Cen­ten­ni­al Col­lege and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Scar­bor­ough near­by.

As a com­plete com­mu­ni­ty, the Gold­en Mile Rede­vel­op­ment also strives to be acces­si­ble and inclu­sive for all. Cur­rent­ly, the Gold­en Mile Block F (Phase 1) is pur­su­ing the Gold rat­ing from the Rick Hansen Foun­da­tion Acces­si­bil­i­ty Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (RHFAC). This pro­gram is designed to chal­lenge devel­op­ers as com­mu­ni­ty builders to go beyond the build­ing code and cre­ate inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to make their com­mu­ni­ties uni­ver­sal­ly acces­si­ble. Block F is also designed to house a wide range of demo­graph­ics, from seniors to young fam­i­lies to emp­ty-nesters. Fur­ther­more, afford­able hous­ing is incor­po­rat­ed as part of the over­all mas­ter plan to ensure appro­pri­ate equi­ty and equal­i­ty for all mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty.