Westbank Announces Plans for Honest Ed's Site

Mixed-use development to rise at corner of Bloor and Bathurst.

Bloor Street Looking South

Westbank, a Vancouver-based property developer, purchased the 1.8-hectare Honest Ed's/Mirvish Village site in 2013. This week they announced their plans at a neighbourhood open house

The unique proposal omits traditional condos for a mixed use development that includes 1000 rental units (many of them family sized) and a mixture of retail and commercial space, with a marketplace dubbed "Mirvish Village Market." The retail component will be largely small scale and echo the storefronts that line Bloor Street.

Bathurst Street Storefronts

For the residential component, Westbank is proposing three towers of between 21-29 storeys in height, the largest at the corner of Bloor and Bathurst. The entire development will be around a million square feet and proposes significant densification in a largely low-to-mid rise neighbourhood.

Westbank says their development plans will be informed by the German phrase “Gesamtkunstwerk,” a word adopted by the Bauhaus movement to describe the incorporation of the arts into design. At the Mirvish site, Westbank has promised a conversation with neighbourhood residents with a speaker series. Another open house is planned for the fall ahead of pre-application meetings with the City.

[Click here for the Westbank site.]