Tim Kirkwood, co-chair of the East Toronto Community Coalition, is seen at 629 Eastern Ave., the proposed site of two auto dealerships.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Less than a year after the death of its big-box dreams in Leslieville, Smart Centres Inc. is back with a new proposal to plunk two car dealerships in the gentrifying neighbourhood.
The Vaughan-based developer has applied to turn the prized Toronto Film Studios site into a small auto mall, with a two-storey, 39,000-square-foot showroom on the Eastern Avenue side and a two-storey, 26,000-square-foot showroom fronting on to Lake Shore Boulevard East.
A site-plan application submitted last month also calls for two new 10,000-square-foot retail outlets on Eastern Avenue and 332 surface parking spaces.
"My personal view is that this would really be a squandering of the opportunity," said Ken Greenberg, one of several renowned architects who helped fend off the $220-million mall proposal.
"If it's just two auto dealerships and a lot of the site is covered with surface parking lots, I think that's a very poor use of such a strategic site."
City Hall and Leslieville activists spent five years fighting the mall - whose anchor tenant was rumoured to be a Wal-Mart - because they feared it would decimate the independent shops on Queen Street East, clog local roads and create only minimum-wage jobs.
The Ontario Municipal Board, the province's planning tribunal, ruled against Smart Centres last March. A court quashed its appeal in October.
The site was used as a temporary jail during the G20 summit.
Mayor David Miller and council wanted to preserve the site for high-paying film or technology jobs. The fight became crucial for a municipal government trying to protect its employment districts, areas of the city zoned for attracting well-paid jobs.
The city rejected nearly 2,000 real low-paying retail jobs in the hopes that a high-paying, knowledge-industry business would move in, enhancing the up-and-coming neighbourhood.
Instead, it looks like Leslieville will get car dealerships and small-scale retailers employing far fewer people than the city hoped.
The new proposal is "as of right," said Sandra Kaiser, vice-president of corporate affairs for Smart Centres.
That means the developer, which co-owns the site with Rose Corp., can go ahead without re-zoning the land or winning an official plan amendment.
She said it was too early to say which auto companies and retailers might move in.
"We were very disappointed [about losing at the OMB]" Ms. Kaiser said. "Now we're trying to make the best of it."
Local Councillor Paula Fletcher, who saw the new proposal for the first time Tuesday, is looking into whether the city has any powers to block or modify the proposal.
"I'm sure this isn't exactly what anybody hoped for," she said. "I just don't know what kind of levers are available to make any changes."
However, she pointed out that car dealerships and small retail outlets aren't likely to lure as much traffic or wound the Queen East strip as much as a 700,000-square-foot shopping centre.
That provides some comfort to Tim Kirkwood, co-chair of the East Toronto Community Coalition, which spearheaded local opposition to the mall. But not much.
"It's just disappointing to see a Neanderthal answer here," said Mr. Kirkwood, a freelance video editor. "It's a backwards step."
He's disappointed in part because the Eastern Avenue site and Leslieville have evolved together.
In the neighbourhood's down-at-heel industrial days, the property housed the Toronto Iron Works and the A.R. Clarke Tannery, which burned to the ground in 2001.
The Rose Corporation bought the property and converted it into the Toronto Film Studios, which spurred the development of cafés, restaurants and antique furniture shops on Queen East. Rose Corp. sold half its stake to Smart Centres. in 2006 when it started to build the new Filmport studio in the Port Lands.
"The neighbourhood became eclectic. I'm so sorry to see that that industry has moved down to Filmport," Mr. Kirkwood said.
He's not sure which he thinks is the worse fate for the site: A retail mall or an auto mall.
"That's kind of like saying, 'Is getting a slap in the face better than a slap in the ass?' "