Structural steel now going up for the new industrial building between the VMP and Huron St. The building is at the northern end of the service road and overlooks the VMP.
Nice drone overhead photo of the Westdell Developments small retail plaza at Oxford and Westdel Bourne. The Wendy's now has most of the exterior cladding installed and the other building is making progress building the exterior wall studs and wall boards.
I'm just glad that the RONA vacancy is being filled. There are many of abandoned RONAs littering the landscape of Ontario, some of which have been empty for decades.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell). Sweet Loretta fart thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan. (John Lennon)
They have been working on renovating a building at 376 Richmond St into residential units with the ground floor commercial/retail. They have replaced the small windows on the north side with all new units. The project is called 376 Lofts with units starting at $990/month.
London surpasses $1 billion in building permits for 2025
The City of London announced it has already surpassed $1 billion in building permits issued this year, which puts it on track to match last year’s record of $2.2 billion. “Hitting the $1-billion mark in construction value six months into the year demonstrates the continued confidence of the development industry in London,” said Mayor Josh Morgan. The city said the figure represents 2,350 new housing units and 1,800 building permits since the beginning of the year, and attributed the strong pace of permit issuance to “the city’s creation of a process that prioritizes housing developments set to begin in 2025 by fast-tracking the approval of site plans and building permits,” noting that the number of approved housing units is the second highest in the last ten years. “Our fast-tracking of developments made London a nationwide leader in site planning and permit approval timelines in 2024, and our progress this year proves we’re building on that momentum in our commitment to delivering more housing options to meet the needs of Londoners,” said Morgan.
The upshot: London pretty reliably hits this number every year, so the interesting part ― the part the city is keen to play up here ― is how quickly they’ve hit it this year. Deputy city manager of housing Scott Mathers said the strong result came about in part due to the city’s focus on approving large-scale residential projects, as the city continues to work to improve intensification and development. “This milestone reflects more than just permit volume ― it shows that the tools we’ve put in place to accelerate housing development are delivering results,” Mathers said in a press release. “By prioritizing large-scale residential projects and streamlining our processes, we’re making meaningful progress toward increasing housing supply and supporting our growing population.” The largest of those approved this year is Auburn Developments’ 415-unit proposal at 100 Villagewalk Boulevard, near Sunningdale and Richmond.
Plenty of land speculators operating as "developers". Simply buying properties and rezoning them to more attractive zoning in order to bump up the value then sell for a profit. They will never actually spend money on detailed site plan applications or building permits because they have no intentions of ever following thru to build.
I guess I don't see this as a real problem. If I buy a chunk of land for x and spend y to rezone it, and then sell it for x+y+whatever %, presumably the purchaser is going to build on it or they wouldn't have bought it. This guy only bought the property a few years ago, doesn't seem like there was a long line of people wanting it before. I suppose the Tricar's and Old Oaks etc would prefer to do the zoning themselves as they have people on staff for that rather than paying the profit margin for another company doing it, but they are free to try to buy up these properties when they go on the market in the first place. Maybe the next company that buys this lot sits on it for a few years trying to cash in on a second flip. But I have to think if there was a real market for those developments in the near term, the market would move along enough to convince the land speculators to sell or for the real developers to actually be more aggressive in purchasing these buildings lots before the re-zoning
Structural steel now going up for the small new commercial/retail building in the NE corner of the Westmount Mall parking lot. There has been nothing but crickets from the Mall owners on the proposal to build mid rise residential buildings around the edge of the existing mall buildings. You'd think if they were serious they would be much further along with detailed site plan applications and building permits. But this may be a bump and dump play to increase the value in order to sell it off.
Walls now starting to be installed on the industrial building north of Huron St fronting onto VMP. Progress on the new hanger building at the airport has slowed with very little movement on the 2s office portion on the east side.
Looks like the new Chick Fil A on Richmond is wrapping up the exterior cladding finish. Final touch-ups and pavement with interior finishing and this could be opening next month.
Last edited by jammer139; Aug 18, 2025 at 12:46 PM.
On a positive note though the article says that there will probably be a few large apartment projects starting later in the year. We can only hope they will be downtown.
Not surprising, given how long homes are now sitting on the market. After Covid, very high inflation and interest rates, and now tariffs, people are pessimistic about their future economic prospects, which immediately impacts housing demand.
Consumer sentiment is a strong leading indicator.
__________________
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell). Sweet Loretta fart thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan. (John Lennon)
Does anyone know what’s going in at the old Peavey mart on Hyde park? Not much info on the City page. And not seeing much elsewhere online. They’ve torn down all of the walls, looks pretty weird driving by. Especially at night, as all the lights are on “inside”.
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