One of the elements to great city planning is the capability of easily ‘moving people’ with an increasing emphasis on fewer cars, more walkable city centres allowing more pedestrians and bikes. An important contributor to this vision is smartly planned public transit in identified growth areas and emerging employment hubs.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced $12 billion in federal funding for five rapid transit projects in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, including the Yonge-North Subway Extension.
Approximately $10.7 billion of the investment will go towards the cost of building the four projects included in the Progressive Conservative’s $28.5 billion transit plan: the three-stop Scarborough subway extension, the Ontario Line subway, the Yonge subway extension into Richmond Hill and the planned extension of the Eglinton Crosstown from Mount Denis to Renforth Drive. The money will also help pay for a new rapid transit line in Hamilton that will go from McMaster University to Eastgate Centennial Park in Stoney Creek.
Prime Minister Trudeau said the “historic” agreement will reduce traffic congestion and pollution and create tens of thousands of jobs, as part of Canada’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
“Rapid transit shortens commutes, which gives parents more time with their kids and ensures kids will inherit a cleaner future,” Trudeau said. “Public transit is at the heart of a strong recovery and a growing middle class.”
The Yonge-North subway extension will travel eight kilometres (4.97-mile) from Finch Station will bring the Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) existing Line 1 to the cities Vaughan, Markham and Richmond Hill. It will have four stops in the York region and is estimated to be complete around 2030.
The project is expected to attract 94,100 daily riders.
The Initial Business Case and supplementary analysis for the project, released by Metrolinx, shows that the extension would strengthen connections to jobs and housing, take thousands of cars off our roads and provide more people with access to transit.
The province and Metrolinx will be moving forward with further analysis on a route that will provide access to transit within walking distance to 26,000 more people and reduce commute times to downtown Toronto by up to 22 minutes.
The investment in transit infrastructure for the Yonge North Subway Extension is critical to accompany the growth of the York Region. Home to approximately 1.2 million residents including the highest technology workforce concentration in the Toronto- Waterloo Corridor, York Region has the highest concentration of technology companies in the country and is already a top Canadian headquarter location for global companies such as IBM, AMD, Huawei, Honda, Toshiba, J&J, BMW, Allstate and Adidas.
As Ontario’s fastest-growing large municipality, the York region is committed to creating world-class communities that attract and retain top global talent, including a $4.7 billion investment in capital infrastructure projects over the next decade. With top quality of life, a mix of housing options and world-class transportation including the new Vaughan Metropolitan Centre subway extension now open and the upcoming Yonge North Extension.
Located only 16 miles north of downtown Toronto at the intersection of Highways 400/407, and a short 10-minute drive from Toronto Pearson International Airport, the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre (VMC) is an emerging urban core within the York/ Toronto Region. This planned downtown for the City of Vaughan will provide all the amenities of a vibrant city centre including direct access to a multi-modal public transit hub.
The VMC is one of Canada’s largest master planned communities, complemented by a world-class transit system offering residents and businesses seamless connectivity throughout the Toronto Region. The VMC is served by a direct TTC subway line to/from Downtown Toronto, a York Region Rapid Transit bus terminal, a Viva Bus Rapidway transit system, and the 400 series highway network within the GTA.
transit system, and the 400 series highway network within the GTA.
A crucial concept underpinning the VMC is that adjacent housing and urban amenities are being leveraged by top employers to attract talent. Among those employers are KPMG, which has located more than 600 staff in the VMC’s first office building, the 15-storey KPMG Tower at SmartCentres Place. Other tenants that have moved into the area include Miller Thomson, GFL Environmental, and the head office of Harley-Davidson Canada. An adjacent mixed-use regional office for PwC is also under development. These companies leverage Vaughan’s well-educated workforce, part of the wider York Region community of 1.2 million residents, including the highest technology workforce concentration in the Toronto- Waterloo Corridor.
We have seen tremendous real estate activity in the VMC including the launch and sales of the county’s largest master planned community developed by Menkes and QuadReal, Festival Condominiums – launched and sold out 1300 condo units in the fall of 2020 (in the middle of the pandemic) and the subsequent launch of the second phase GRAND Festival in spring 2021. The five Transit City towers at the north side of the VMC are either recently completed and occupied and under construction.
A key urban centre in York Region is Downtown Markham located in southern York Region, adjacent to a major urban office node located near the intersections of Highways 404 and 407 as well as major arterial roads such as Highway 7. The City of Markham is a rapidly growing urban centre and is the focal point of York Region’s technology cluster; home to 4,300 high-tech companies, this represents the highest concentration of tech companies in Canada. The combination of a central Toronto Region location, thriving technology ecosystem and direct access to mass transit.
By 2021, Downtown Markham is anticipated to accommodate 4,000 new high-rise residential units, 563,000 square feet of retail space and 1 million square feet of new office space. There are more than 400 Canadian head office facilities including AMD, Qualcomm, IBM, Huawei Technologies, Toshiba, and Aviva Insurance and a number of major leading financial services and data centres operate in Markham as well.
Savvy condo investors are looking for investment opportunities along these transit lines. This is because we know in Toronto that properties along transit lines experience price appreciation. Toronto homeowners who live in the vicinity of the forthcoming Eglinton Crosstown LRT may soon find that this transit line will add value to their properties.
New numbers from condo listing site Strata show that the 19 km-long, 25-stop transit route has already caused a hike in real estate prices in the areas surrounding it prior to expected completion sometime in 2022. Condos near the middle of the LRT closest to Mount Pleasant and Eglinton stations have seen values spike an average of 63% in the last five years.
We have also seen an increase in land transactions across this transit line where new condo developers have been focusing, which in turn has ended up leading to even greater price appreciation.
M2M SQUARED the second phase in the M2M community at Yonge and Finch is launching in June 2021. Learn more about this exciting new development right at Finch subway station soon to become a major transit hub!
