WHEN ONTARIO LINE CONSTRUCTION RIPS THROUGH VENUE-HEAVY QUEEN WEST EXPECT THE MUSIC TO STOP FOR GOOD
FROM FEBRUARY/MARCH 2022 ISSUE OF WEST END PHOENIX
There was a time when Queen Street was the northern limits of Toronto. It’s about to become the last line of defence for live music.
There are no streets anywhere in the city that have the musical capacity of Queen West. From the Rex at St. Patrick to Drom on Augusta, there are still a half-dozen stages that feature live music near the intersection of Spadina and Queen.
That corner has also been identified as a subway stop on the new Ontario Line. A recent planning study has revealed what many have suspected for a few months now: In order to build this underground line along Queen as it winds from the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place, almost the entire street, from near Parliament to just past Spadina, will have to be closed for at least five years, perhaps seven, and if Eglinton is anything to go by, more likely a decade.
When you close Queen, you close down a whole lot of live music in the city. Quite likely forever.
The plans for the Ontario Line are being released one report at a time. It’s tough to get the full picture and near impossible to get any details or the possible impacts defined. The Ontario Line is the latest version of the Downtown Relief Line (DRL), a subway designed to take the pressure off the Yonge Line while adding better transit to communities in the northeastern part of the city. It’s virtually impossible to expand the existing subway system in any direction without a new north-south route. The city has been struggling to solve this capacity issue for decades.
The challenges have always been funding, and politics. The former mayor Rob Ford may have been the first to chant “subways, subways, subways,” but the chorus has been joined by elected officials in Scarborough, as well as officials in York Region and elsewhere, in demanding a subway and nothing else. And now his brother is in charge. So it’s subways here, subways there and subways everywhere. The TTC has made it clear, though: No new extensions anywhere until some version of the DRL gets built.
Doug Ford pulled out a map, picked up his magic markers, and faster than you can say “presto” the Ontario Line was drawn up. It starts at the Ontario Science Centre and weaves its way south, criss-crossing the Don River, then follows the existing GO lines through Leslieville until it rips into the downtown core near King and Parliament. The line then wiggles underground to Queen East and runs all the way west to Spadina. From there it zigzags to Ontario Place. It’s designed as if Doug Ford thought his magic markers were actually magic.
Toronto subways normally aren’t built very deep in the ground, especially downtown. In order to thread the Ontario Line in and around Queen Street and underneath the existing subways and condos, the Provincial Transit Authority (Metrolinx) will have to build the new line below the old lake bed by blasting through bedrock. The new stations will be almost twice as deep as current ones. The cost for each station will be just as steep, at close to a billion dollars per stop. The 15-stop line only has $10.4B in funding. That’s a problem. The funding that’s been promised is also supposed to extend the Yonge Line and the Bloor-Danforth line, while pushing both Eglinton West and Sheppard West further westward as well. Doug Ford’s calculator seems to be as magical as his magic markers.
To pay for the new line, the Ford government is taking control of huge swaths of land and planning all along the route. Since half the line winds through the Don Valley and criss-crosses the Don River, it means only a small part of the route will have the capacity to create the substantial revenue needed to pay for the project. Metrolinx has already laid claim to station sites; what the provincial government has seized control of is 30 metres of land on either side of the line as it moves primarily through the downtown. The province, through its Transit Oriented Communities legislation, has decided to take over and up-zone subway right-of-ways. This allows Queens Park to override local planning in the hope that bigger developments will generate new riders and offsets costs. Those numbers will be minimal at best despite the scale of what’s forecast.
At the moment, property values on Queen are restrained because the height of new buildings is effectively limited to three storeys under Heritage Conservation District (HCD) protection. The city granted HCD status to Queen West, one of the last Victorian-era streetscapes in Toronto, in 2007, when stores were being demolished and replaced with large mall-style glass-box outlets with no apartments above. The density of CityPlace – the largest and tallest residential development ever built in Toronto, on the former Railway Lands – was also marching north, and Queen West was ripe for redevelopment. The idea was to not only preserve this old Toronto street but also to protect the cultural capacity of Queen and existing affordable rental housing above its shops.
Live music venues also thrive in Queen Street’s present built form. The Rex is three storeys, the Rivoli two, the Horseshoe and Drom a couple of floors. The Cameron House towers over them all at four storeys.
Heritage zoning blunts speculation because under city-enforced rules, the height and design of new buildings in HCDs are strictly regulated and appeals to provincial planning tribunals are not allowed. The city controls the outcome.
The Ontario Line wipes out this local control. With the stroke of a pen, Ford can grant exemptions to anyone who asks. MetroLinx is already temporarily projecting a 20-storey condo atop the Bank of Commerce building next to the Horseshoe. Metrolinx is asking the federal government for funding to make it affordable. There is no way a project that size will ever fund the station underneath. Even a 60-storey luxury condo wouldn’t pay for it. If the project is to include affordable housing, new funding or an even taller building will be needed. The province is going to have to re-zone every lot on Queen West and then some if it hopes to break even. And even then there will be other impacts.
Local businesses and property owners won’t escape the changes. The process that sets tax levels alone will likely bankrupt a club like the Horseshoe, or force its owners to sell: Under market-based provincial property tax formulas, land in Ontario is taxed at its highest and best use. If your neighbour is a 60-storey condo and you own a two-storey commercial building and you’re governed by the same zoning, you suddenly have to pay the same taxes as your neighbour who has just redeveloped. Your tax bill can go from $20,000 a year to $20 million overnight. The music venues not evicted by their landlords will be evicted by the tax collectors.
It’s the same set of rules that just bankrupted Le Sélect Bistro on Wellington Street, a few blocks to the south, where the massive redevelopment on the south side of the street has triggered new and substantially higher property assessments in the area and in particular tax bills on the north side of the street. The owners of Le Select saw their tax bill go up 551 per cent in a single year. You can’t cover those kinds of tax bills with a door charge.
And don’t forget, those who try to tough it out will have a challenge getting customers in the door. Most of Queen Street will be closed to traffic for years. The Queen streetcar will halt service through the core for however long construction takes.
With no customers, higher taxes and landlords facing the pressure to sell or go bankrupt, there is no way live music will survive the onslaught.
Toronto’s music scene is about to go underground. Way underground. Forever.