Toronto's condo crash may have cost the city a key transit station

The future is uncertain for a long-promised Toronto transit station that would have given one of the city's fastest-growing communities a direct link to the downtown core.

Despite years of planning, the demolition of a factory, and ambitious renderings that promised an impressive community built around transit access, the planned Park Lawn GO Station in Etobicoke is now in limbo.

The station was to be the centrepiece of a vast new community boasting over a dozen towers on the site of the former Christie's cookie factory at Park Lawn and Lake Shore West.

Now, however, a downturn in the condo market has forced many developers to reconsider projects, and slumping sales pose an even greater threat to large multi-tower communities like the 2150 Lake Shore plan spearheaded by developers First Capital and Pemberton Group.

The station at the heart of it all was to span Park Lawn Road, straddling the Lakeshore West GO corridor, and feature access points on either side of the street and on both sides of the rail embankment. A standalone north station building would have been built at the intersection of Park Lawn and a yet-to-be-named public street serving the new community.

But the condo crunch has thrown these plans into disarray, with the developers now stepping back from their ambitious plan and awaiting an improvement in market conditions.

A Metrolinx spokesperson tells blogTO that, earlier this year, the transit agency "was informed by the development partner for the proposed Park Lawn GO station that they are pausing work as they review their development plans."

"Metrolinx remains open to the opportunity for a third party to deliver a proposed new Park Lawn GO Station along the Lakeshore West GO line in the City of Toronto."

As for the private-public partnership that would have required the developer to construct the station ahead of the community's first phase, the Metrolinx spokesperson stated that "The Province's Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program aims to create opportunities for third parties to fund the design and delivery of new transit infrastructure for Metrolinx to operate."

"New GO stations delivered through the TOC program are dependent on third-party timelines. All third-party agreements for new stations are subject to provincial approval and will be designed and constructed in accordance with Metrolinx standards and requirements," stated Metrolinx.