Rexdale braces for a boom
David Rider Urban Affairs Bureau Chief
As cranes swing over 100 big-building projects in other parts of Toronto, the sky at Albion Rd. and Highway 27 is quiet and empty. Nothing in sight towers more than two stories.
Rexdale’s hopes of rising above economic struggle, joblessness and crime — of finally tasting some boom — rose in 2005 with news of a massive entertainment-retail complex coming to Woodbine race track lands. Then, as the 150 acres sat empty, hopes sank.
But, the Star has learned, construction on the first phase of Woodbine Live — a billion-dollar development, one of the biggest in Toronto ever — is slated to start this fall. Also opening will be an employment centre with a city-negotiated mandate to give north Etobicoke residents first crack at the promised 9,000 permanent new jobs.
Subdivision and site plan agreements with the city are nearing completion, capping complex approvals for a 450-room hotel, a 5,000-seat live performance venue, a big-box retail centre, a movie theatre, smaller upscale shops and bars and restaurants.
“Our team is working closely with the City on a daily basis to finalize the last remaining details of various agreements and we anticipate breaking ground later this year,” wrote Taylor Gray, development director for Baltimore-based The Cordish Company, in an email.
Cordish is a partner in the project with Woodbine Entertainment Group, the land owner and horsetrack operator that also has a slots-only casino with 3,000 machines. Paperwork for phase two of Woodbine Live, a residential and office development, is in early stages with the city.
Those who have helped push the project along say it should be transformative, a game-changer for an area that includes Bloods and Crips battlegrounds.
“People are excited — it’s going to revitalize Rexdale,” says Rob Ford, whose Ward 2 will include the project. “Tourists will get off the plane and go to Rexdale.”
Says Suzan Hall, councillor for neighbouring Ward 1: “I think it will upgrade our community. This is going to be extremely positive, both in terms of jobs and high-end restaurants and other facilities.”
Microskills, a non-profit that helps women, minorities, youths and immigrants get skills and find jobs, will help connect its clients with Cordish.
“The unemployment in north Etobicoke is still disproportionately high, especially among youths and immigrants and minority groups,” says Kay Blair, the agency’s executive director.
“There really is a culture of fear in north Etobicoke. When people’s overall quality of life is so uncertain, there’s a feeling of hopelessness. I think this development changes that, that it makes north Etobicoke no longer the poor cousin of Toronto.”
High hopes. But there are also fears many Rexdale residents won’t benefit from Woodbine Live much more they do from the annual Queen’s Plate thoroughbred race, which sees a parade of posh cars roll through Rexdale to the track, park and later roll out.
Cadigia Ali is a social activist, aspiring politician (she is running for council in Ward 2 while Ford is running for mayor) and member of a coalition of groups that pushed Cordish to guarantee that 30 per cent of Woodbine Live workers are from North Etobicoke.
The coalition, CORD, didn’t get that, or guarantees that Cordish will build rec centres and other community facilities.
Cordish did agree, in exchange for Toronto forgoing an estimated $120 million worth of property taxes over 20 years, to provide the job centre building, and to guarantee that north Etobicoke residents get advance notice of jobs, both construction and permanent, and time to acquire or improve their skills.
“I’m positive about the project but we have to be there, we have to be vigilant,” says Ali, who wants “good, green jobs” and is concerned for the neighbourhood.
“Rob Ford once said they’re going to ‘bring a little bit of Rosedale to Rexdale.’ There is a feeling that disadvantaged people will be priced out.”
Back at Albion and 27, in an office up the stairs from a massage parlour, Gary Newman oversees 17 young men and women, all former gang members or “at risk,” taking a 28-week course that pays them a minimum wage to learn life skills needed to get back to school or on track for a career.
“Aw, man, it’s like a desert out there,” says Newman, project director of the federally funded Breaking the Cycle, waving at the window, talking about the job market.
Hall has promised him Woodbine Live is coming. Newman is eager to hook up his program’s graduates with jobs, but is also wary the mega-project will blind people — “like a giant screen” — to problems in neighbourhoods around it.
And the reality is, many Breaking the Cycle participants who have criminal records, including Cauldrick, 24, probably won’t have a hope of working at Woodbine Live unless they stay straight for years and get a pardon.
“A hotel?” says Cauldrick, when told of the project. Well-spoken and polite, he has a Grade 8 education and wants to find an honest way to support his two children.
“I’ve always wanted to work in a hotel, at the front desk, or doing odd jobs. That’s a dream.”
Rexdale is a neighborhood located in the north west pocket of Toronto. It borders Malton and Mississauga to the west, Vaughn to the north, North York to the east, and the southern part of Etobicoke to its south - given that Rexdale is technically a smaller, northernmost peice of the overall borough of Etobicoke. Rexdale was still mainly just farmland until its beginnings came in the 1950's when Developer Rex Heslop created the now burgeoning suburb in Toronto's north west end. Heslop had the foresight to see that the completion of the 401 highway and the nearby Toronto International Airport would create a large demand for homes in what is now the Rexdale Area.
As aforementioned the Rexdale area was still mainly farmland. The Township of Etobicoke had a problem with rising residential tax rates and in order to quell that somewhat they decided to grant Heslop certain concessions on the basis that he develop the what was then farmland into industrial land. Heslop recognized a win-win situation in that by doing as Etobicoke asked would ultimately create more jobs and therefore create more buyers for the homes he was making in what is now Rexdale. Rexdale now boasts one of the largest industrial corridors in the entire city....Good job Rex!
