Another Beer Store location in Toronto will be torn down for condos

Hot on the heels of news that several Beer Store locations across Ontario are closing, another of the beer retailer's brick-and-mortar stores in Toronto is now being targeted for redevelopment.

The Beer Store's location just northwest of the Bayview and Eglinton intersection could soon join the growing list of shuttered outposts for the brand, with a development application in play for the site at 609 Roehampton Avenue.

Starbank Developments is proposing to tear down the existing Beer Store and adjacent vacant retail unit at this site (formerly Tosto and The Works), along with surrounding surface parking, and build out the property with a pair of 15-storey residential buildings.

The proposal features a pair of towers designed by Turner Fleischer Architects that would reach heights of just over 65 metres and put residents just steps from the city's newest transit line.

The complex would dedicate the entirety of its floor space to residential uses, with no replacement retail space in the cards for the lost Beer Store location.

The plan calls for 209 units across the complex, with 150 units concentrated in one building and just 59 (including 43 multi-bedroom units) housed in a smaller boutique building next door. 

A relatively small parking component of just 11 spaces is proposed at ground level, with the majority of residents' commuting needs to be addressed with 231 bicycle parking spaces, and easy access to the nearby Leaside station on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT — set to finally open in 2025.

No timeline for construction is mentioned in the plans, which are still in a very early state. So locals relying on this Beer Store location can rest easy for now (or, like, just go next door to Metro).

But the forthcoming closure — whenever it happens — is part of a broader pattern playing out in Ontario as the retailer struggles to stay afloat following the provincial government's expansion of beer and wine sales.

In January, John Nock, President of UFCW, the union that represents Beer Store workers across the province, told us that, since May of 2024, 23 of the chain's locations either have closed or are set to close by Feb. 28. 

Redevelopment of this and other Beer Store locations is not accounted for in the 23 stores out of over 350 across the province that have already closed or are facing imminent closure.

The Beer Store is obligated to keep 300 of its locations operational through the end of 2025 as part of a deal with the province, though there are no safeguards in place once the year ends.

While the redevelopment of these lands is another step towards extinction for the beer retailer in a new era of widespread availability at grocery and convenience stores, there are some merits worth mentioning.

Intensification of this lot — which is primarily built out with surface parking serving the Beer Store — is a clear move away from the car-centric roots of the neighbourhood as Leaside reorients itself around the soon-to-open Eglinton Crosstown LRT.