We have continued to express the neighbourhood’s concerns about our rather desolate streetscape as it awaits all the approved, but as yet unbuilt developments. We have written recently written to our Councillor and included some visuals to illustrate our case:
November 27, 2025
Dear Councillor Matlow,
Yesterday I did a thorough walking tour of the Yonge Street retail from Heath St to the CPR tracks, on both sides of the street because our community is very concerned about the magnitude of vacancies and their derelict condition. This disturbing condition has been going on for many years now.
The tour revealed one consistent problem which we find to be quite shameful. Almost all the vacant retail is owned by some of the wealthiest Canadians. There were only 3 or 4 isolated small shops on that entire stretch which are vacant and owned by smaller independent landlords. In general, the smaller landlords are far more diligent at keeping their spaces occupied, presumably because they cannot afford vacancies.
In our area the largest frontage of vacant retail is held by Aspen Ridge (deGasperis family). They have not rented any of their retail space at the base of the Jack condominium in over SEVEN years since completion. In addition, they now own most of the frontage from Jackes to Woodlawn Ave East, which is all vacant. The second largest contiguous vacant retail frontage is owned by Metropia (Howard Sokolowski) who several years ago vacated many established, successful and popular businesses in our community. All these spaces have been boarded up since then. The third largest group of vacancies is owned by Terracap (Larry Krauss) and this collection is in the worst condition of them all – deteriorating steadily and often a stopping point for people experiencing homelessness and struggling with other problems as well. The final holding of large vacancies is Wittington (Weston family) on the east side of Yonge south of Heath.
All four developers are holding these properties hopeful of a return to favourable market conditions for high rise condos or luxury rentals., but most analysts are predicting it will be several years before these conditions improve. None of their projects are even remotely financially viable in this market.
This problem is not unique to our neighbourhood and can be found in many areas across our city.
We have a suggestion that could help improve the appearance of this blight in the short term, plus further suggestions to help reduce or eliminate this problem in the long term.
In the short term we are suggesting a by-law that obliges landlords to animate and maintain their vacant retail frontages. Every mall owner does this successfully when they have vacant units because they have pride of ownership. The city currently obliges a similar practice for construction hoarding such that it must be animated with images of artwork and must be maintained properly.
The bigger picture though is to prevent premature lease terminations of retail space by developers, ending viable community services years before any development can start. We suggest measures to prevent early lease terminations on retail space until a building permit is submitted for the new development. An expert in commercial leases would need to be consulted to work out the legal details of these measures.
In addition, the City needs to create deterrents to leaving new retail vacant (as in the case of the Jack condominium), and similarly to prevent the same in older existing buildings. We think a vacant retail property tax should be implemented after a certain grace period of vacancy to incentivize the landlord to find a tenant to use the space. I repeat that the less affluent landlords seem to have enough incentive themselves since they demonstrate the ability to find entrepreneurs to rent their spaces in the very same locations. The affluent landlords just don’t seem to care about this lost revenue opportunity.
Our community feels this problem has seriously degraded our neighbourhood and therefore requires a far greater effort by the City to improve the situation now, given the number of years it has persisted.
We look forward to your response and request an opportunity to have a discussion with you and your team and the BIA on how to improve our important streetscapes.
Regards,
Greg Nevison
Board Member, DPRG
