[adma]

I seem to recall it being said that the family behind Yung Sing still owns the property, FWIW--so there might be some "internal reasoning"...

 

[junctionist]

It's always been my impression that much of this area Baldwin/Spadina and the lake area around have been a zone of neglect for reasons I can't quite explain. It's one of the more interesting areas that have many beautiful victorian houses etc. It's smack downtown and I suppose many property owners just don't care. Plus the city of Toronto's laissez faire attitude to offshore and/or local owners who let their properties fall into disrepair.

Yonge Street from Dundas to Bloor is also a bizarre zone of neglect. Many of the Victorian buildings have retail on the ground floor and abandoned upper floors. This building's upper floors are almost completely vacant. So are this building's upper floors. These are just the most obvious examples. Many other Victorians still have some old curtains on the upper floors to look inhabited but are actually vacant and crumbling on the upper floors.

It doesn't make sense in that the same built form exists all along Queen, Bloor, and Dundas in the west end, but the buildings are generally better maintained and have renovated (and inhabited) apartments on the upper floors. The centrality of the location is amazing. Yet it seems like a lot of the owners are just land speculators who have little interest in using their heritage buildings to their full potential.

 

[AlbertC]

In terms of the old residential side street housing and main street mixed use buildings in areas like Chinatown and Kensington Market, it's common for many properties to be held within the same families for 2 to 3 generations. Often the buildings are kept as legacy or as a passive asset, where there's not an immediate push to update the spaces as long as they're able to collect rent as is. And the ownership families are very distant and live nowhere near the neighbourhood. This can be seen in many of the retail spaces along Spadina from around Baldwin and northward to College which were left sleepy and dormant until about a decade or so ago with a new wave of businesses that opened which catered to U of T students.

Whereas in other areas like Dundas West and Leslieville there's been better initiatives as the side street residential have also seen influxes of new residents and will support and patronize the local businesses. While in King West and Ossington they've also become more organized and the retail spaces are managed by larger companies or REITs in some instances,

 

[70Challenger]

Yonge Street from Dundas to Bloor is also a bizarre zone of neglect. Many of the Victorian buildings have retail on the ground floor and abandoned upper floors. This building's upper floors are almost completely vacant. So are this building's upper floors. These are just the most obvious examples. Many other Victorians still have some old curtains on the upper floors to look inhabited but are actually vacant and crumbling on the upper floors.

It's why I welcome facadectomies with open arms. These small owners are largely unwilling or unable to provide even basic maintenance and it's making our city look third world. Better for them to be absorbed into one large property with a steady income.

 

[DSCToronto]

It's why I welcome facadectomies with open arms. These small owners are largely unwilling or unable to provide even basic maintenance and it's making our city look third world. Better for them to be absorbed into one large property with a steady income.
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Not all the semi-occupied buildings are owned by 'small landlords'. Many are owned by the big developers who have been assembling land along Yonge for decades. If one hopes to develop a lot it is unlikely you will bother doing much maintenance and having tenants (esp residential ones) complicates getting a building empty.

 

[RGB_11]

Yonge Street from Dundas to Bloor is also a bizarre zone of neglect. Many of the Victorian buildings have retail on the ground floor and abandoned upper floors. This building's upper floors are almost completely vacant. So are this building's upper floors. These are just the most obvious examples. Many other Victorians still have some old curtains on the upper floors to look inhabited but are actually vacant and crumbling on the upper floors.

It doesn't make sense in that the same built form exists all along Queen, Bloor, and Dundas in the west end, but the buildings are generally better maintained and have renovated (and inhabited) apartments on the upper floors. The centrality of the location is amazing. Yet it seems like a lot of the owners are just land speculators who have little interest in using their heritage buildings to their full potential.

Just a thought: If the upstairs is in good enough (safe) condition for rental living, wouldn't those who work there want to live upstairs??

 

[DSCToronto]

Just a thought: If the upstairs is in good enough (safe) condition for rental living, wouldn't those who work there want to live upstairs??

Big 'if" in many cases! Also, if you want to demolish a building, having residential tenants (or having had tenants) makes it a much harder/longer process.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Frequently property becomes 'abandoned' because the owners are old, abroad or dead and manage to organise someone to pay the taxes but nothing more. In the 1980s I tried to buy an 'abandoned' house in Montreal but it was 'tied up in a family inheritance case'. It was finally sold about 5 years ago, either the case was resolved or more people died!

I seem to recall it being said that the family behind Yung Sing still owns the property, FWIW--so there might be some "internal reasoning"...

The patriarch of the family died relatively recently - so the property is definitely in the hands of the family now. I do wish someone could pick up the metaphorical torch - but operating a bakery isn't a typically second generation immigrant occupation.

AoD