The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre
Now that the City of Vaughan has an exciting new name for its future downtown – The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre – it is time to move forward with the proper planning of this great area. The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre will be a vibrant and exciting urban core – filled with lives and vitality!
The Metropolitan Centre is a key part of Vaughan’s new Official Plan. Recognizing the importance of this area, the City undertook a Secondary Plan Review of this area, with an expectation of recommendations coming forward by February 2010 and having it incorporated into the Office Plan Review.
In the meantime, we will continue with the public process to gain more input from the various stakeholders, including our residents and businesses. A second Open House “Exploring Development Concepts for a New Downtown” was held back in the fall of 2009 and received positive feedback from those in attendance. An important question raised was how will our future downtown be different? What can we do to make it stand out from other downtown cores? By working together and presenting ideas amongst residents, businesses, stakeholders, consultants and city staff, we will be able to develop a downtown that we will all be proud to call our home.
With the lack of natural feature, a lack of residential context and with little in the way of “places” to draw people to, Vaughan Metropolitan Centre does face some major challenges.
January 4, 2010 Update |
However, we will not be deterred by these challenges but in fact, turn them into opportunities to create an extraordinary public realm. A downtown filled with beautiful and unique architecture and a range of distinct neighbourhoods – a place that is not only inviting and welcoming, but sustainable and environmentally friendly.
The Vaughan Metropolitan Centre will be the future urban downtown gateway to Vaughan, York Region and the Greater Toronto Area. A marketing plan is now being developed as part of the Economic Development Strategy and should be completed by June 2010. At the same time, a new marketing brochure will be available in the New Year, highlighting the new name of our future downtown and featuring what it has to offer.
In the interim, a new advertisement campaign will be appearing shortly in the local newspapers, featuring the positive opportunities in this area, especially with the forthcoming construction of the Spadina Subway Extension, with its final stop in the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.
Recently in December 2009, a groundbreaking ceremony took place, kicking off the construction of the $2.6 billion project to begin in the New Year, with an anticipated completion in 2015. This subway extension project – the only one extending into the GTA – is a major component of the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre and will play a major role in how this area will be developed. It is our goal to feature a well-balanced mixture of residential/office/commercial/retail component along with open green spaces and to encourage all of us to leave our cars at home and use public transit for work, school and pleasure.
A Transportation Environmental Study is also underway currently in this area, lead by York Region staff, to not only look at the re-naming of Highway 7 to Avenue 7 but also to look at other integral links to and from the area for resident and the affected businesses. Public consultation sessions will take place in the New Year and for more information, please visit www.york.ca.