About 10 years ago,.. the previous long time Councillor for the area John Filion - fresh after his failed A-La-Cart fiasco ($30K per cart, many vendors lost their life savings https://torontolife.com/food/filion...ne-thing-the-city-messed-up-on-was-the-carts/ ) - decided it would be great to have a St.Lawence Market venture up here in Willowdale,... and to utilize Section 37 Community Benefit money to create the space (namely ground floor retail along north-side of this Sorbara Beacon and adjacent south-side of Centrium - now G-Group's Ellie Condo with open outdoor space in between for to act as Mew to host outdoor events/gatherings). A St.Lawrence Market with Cheese Counter, Butcher shop, Bakery, Fish counter, Deli shop - hey, they just invented the perimeter of a supermarket without the core goods!!!

After they failed to secure such vendors and realizing area Supermarkets already provide such services,... the FLIP Kitchen Food Incubator was started - operators from equity seeking groups providing food type not found in the area (while there's many restaurants along Yonge St, they mostly centre around Asian noodle, Korean and Bubble Tea to serve the local demographic - here, that's not allowed, these dishes are unfamiliar to most locals),.... then the original non-profit operator bailed.

A new non-profit operator brought in, but FLIP Kitchen tenants choose not to continue,... so evictions,...

Meanwhile adjacent G-Group's Ellie Condo is finishing up,... with their ground-floor retail space along south-side about to be conveyed to City as Section 37 Community Benefit,.... a FLIP Kitchen2 would be another failure,... so movement is to convert to Non-Profit Childcare space but likely EarlyON,...

This is a good example of the City and previous City Councillor wasting Section 37 Community Benefit money!
 
This is built...........why exactly did Sorbara renew lobbying on it?
 
B!gz said:
Are you sure it’s this site? They have other properties on Yonge street
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Yup, I'm sure.

1751910398876.png


Note the recent approval date.
 
B!gz said:
Maybe it has to do with that failed food court?
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err,... that "failed food court" aka: "Flip Kitchen Food Hall" retail space actually belongs to the City of Toronto,... via Section 37 Community Benefits! So it's the City's problem not Sorbara's! The previous Cllr originally conceived this to be a St.Lawrence Market north type of establishment with the adjacent retail space to the north at Ellie Condo,... with Cafe, Bakery, Fruit/Veggie, Deli/Butcher, Fish Stalls, etc,... oh, but wait a minute, they already have this at nearby super-markets - one-stop food shopping,... so why anyone come here??? So without vendors, City pivot to Food Incubator/Training Food Hall,...

Northern Light said:
This is built...........why exactly did Sorbara renew lobbying on it?
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Sorbara likely renewing lobbying,... to get some of their unsellable/empty Office Space converted to more sellable/lease-able Retail Space or at least more liberal Office usage like International Private Schools, Massage Parlours, etc,...

Whereas the previous Cllr John Filion would have screamed and yelled "a contract is a contract!" "It's Office Space and we fought for what little Office Space we can get in this North York Centre" (this keeps the area Mixed-Usage with some decent local Office gigs),... the current Cllr Lily Cheng is a pushover/sell-out, she already allowed renegotiation of significant portion of the required Office Space to be converted to Retail Space and/or more liberal Office Space usage at Conservatory Group's Pearl Place, Menkes 4800 Yonge, Aoyuan/Winnet's M2M Phase 1, etc,...

Also, Sorbara's 5200 Yonge still need to deliver the underground passage connecting P1 Parking level of 5200 Yonge to that of Ellie Condo to the north,... but that's "a contract is a contract!"
 
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