By Sarah Osborne
Part of the land set aside for an O-Train station off Gladstone Avenue may also be home to an apartment building some day, and the Preston Street Business Improvement Association welcomes this possibility.
Lori Mellor, executive director of the Preston Street BIA, says she is pleased more people may move into the area and increase the neighbourhood’s vitality.
“I don’t see it as being anything but positive,” says Mellor.
The city informed Mellor that the land at 938 Gladstone Ave. that borders the O-Train tracks and the south side of the street has been turned over to O-Train use.
Plans to build a paramedic station and parking lot were abandoned in favour of larger development that may some day take place adjacent to a proposed new O-Train station, the city told Mellor.
Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes says the land will most likely have a residential use. She says it’s part of the city’s planning strategy to encourage high-density residential development near transit as a way to cut down on pollution and traffic.
The O-Train expansion, including the new stop at Gladstone, is in the environmental review stage.
Holmes says she doesn’t know when construction may start on the station, but the station, and possible residential development, is a “good news story.”
“I think it’s great to have a transit station in the middle of the Preston Street BIA, so people will be able to access the restaurants and stores,” says Holmes.
Holmes says the land won’t be developed residentially for a few years yet, but that it’s a good decision not just to put in a parking lot.
She says the city has a better location for a parking lot, on the school board grounds at the corner of Gladstone and Preston, and it is waiting for school board approval now.
Mellor says the Preston Street BIA wants to increase the number of residents in the neighbourhood, and has for a while. “It’s nice to see that it’s starting to happen,” she says.
Mellor says more residents will help revitalize the Preston Street neighbourhood, but the area still needs some basic services. The area does not have a post office or grocery store. She says the Preston Street BIA would like to see more retail services as well as “things that people can do beyond eating on the street.”
Mellor says people should also be able to window shop and browse boutiques, or go to a local liquor store.
The Preston Street BIA does not have any complaints about other high-density developments in the area, Mellor says, pointing to the Sakto Corporation buildings at 333 Preston Street, south of the Queensway.