The Price Chopper site is located on the east side of Gladstone Avenue, just north of the Gladstone Hotel. While currently used for a well needed discount grocery store, the site is ripe for redevelopment. The City of Toronto Official Plan calls for mixed use development on the site, but the current I1 D2 zoning (or more detailed land use permissions) calls for light industrial purposes at a density ratio of 2.0 (that is, a building can be two times the area of the lot) with a height limit of 14 metres. Permitted uses include artist live/work studio, custom workshops, general wholesaling establishments, certain classes of storage warehouses, packaging plants, among a host of other similar uses.
The Price Chopper site is a key redevelopment parcel in the neighbourhood, being large, under-used (there is lots of excess parking), and strategically located between the Gladstone Hotel, Queen Street store fronts, and low rise residential of Northcote Street and Gladstone Avenue.
Active 18 is concerned that the potential redevelopment of the site may result in a similar pattern of high rise condominium development found south of Queen. Rather, the various plans produced by York U students following a community charrette speak to a more sensitive infill of lower rise residential along Northcote, an extension of the alley south through the site, and mixed employment-based uses on the Gladstone Avenue side. The discount grocery services should be retained in any redevelopment as it provides a key source of inexpensive food and household items for the community. Parking should be underground. The Gladstone Avenue streetscape should be animated. But, most importantly, the redevelopment should not dwarf the Gladstone Hotel nor have inappropriate shadow impacts on adjacent residential.
Active 18 welcome a cutting edge redevelopment of this site.